Eck (9-18-09)

I'll say it again -- eck. Got on the scales at WW this week (9-14-09) and weighed 192.2. I gained 0.2 since last week, which is not that big of a deal. But Monday morning (same date) I got on my scales and weighed 192. Okay. But last week I was so psyched to weight 188.5, like, three or four days in a row. Now THIS morning (9-18) I get on my scales and was 193.5. Eck.

I've got to get back on track with the high protein/low carb thing. I know this is my main problem. I've been craving potato chips lately, and eating them, too.

Eck :(

WW Week 25

No meeting yesterday because of Labor Day, but this morning at home I weighed 188.5. Woo hoo! Now I just hope I can STAY in the 180's and not creep back into the 190's....

I'm learning. Slowly but surely, I'm learning.

WW Week 24

Yep, it's been a while. I'm still plodding along and it's been nearly 6 months. On my home scales I finally saw 190.0 for the first time ever! I'm excited. That means I've lost 21 pounds from my highest of 211. 21 pounds in 24 weeks -- not bad. And I still have 16 more weeks to go until Christmas. Maybe I can lose a total of 30-35 pounds by then...

I've abandoned the very strict Atkins way of eating for a more general low-carb, low-fat, fiber-ful way of eating. I don't track my WW points like I should every day, but when I eat smarter, I lose a little. I usually start out the week tracking pretty well, but it never fails that I can't get to my tracker, or I forget to write something down, etc. I figure I'll just try to eat the good-for-you stuff, then it'll take care of itself.

WW Week 16 -- an aside

Buffy is gone to WV to pick her daughter up from her sister's house and I'm stuck in the office. So I peruse cyberspace. Who doesn't when they're not busy? Anyway, I was looking for low carb recipe ideas for side dishes for our 4th of July cookout and I tripped over this website. It's another sad story of a lady who lost 150 pounds on the Weight Watchers plan back in 2003 and who has gained back all the weight she lost, plus more. She's trying again and has lost 30 pounds so far.

Just another reason to believe, 1) every body is predetermined to be a certain size (you can't help your height, can you?) , and 2) Weight Watchers doesn't work for the majority of users over the long haul. I've seen several Weight Watcher's followers who were successful at one point, then gained everything back. Mom's friend, Valerie, lost over 50 pounds with WW three or four years ago and is now as big as she ever was. This is why I've determined that low-carb is the way to go! It's the carbs, dummy, that are making us fat!

Even thought I don't believe in the points counting of Weight Watchers (I don't believe you can eat sugary snacks, stay within your points, and continue to lose weight), I'm going to stick with it and keep going to the meetings with/for Jenny. I told her I'd do it for a year. I DO get a benefit from weighing in and feeling the sting of self-ridicule if I gain.

By the way, I had to bring my lunch today and had a Smart Ones Teriyaki Chicken meal with 39 grams of carbs. Bummer. I was still hungry and ate a Pure Protein bar with 20 grams of protein. Hope that holds me until supper. I'm worried about that, too, because we're having a cookout tonight (Jenny is leaving for California tomorrow with her mom and Haley). Mom was talking about stopping to pick up deli potato salad and baked beans. Not low carb! I guess I'll have a couple of hotdogs without buns then eat a good salad when I get home.

WW Week 16

I didn't post anything last week because I didn't gain or lose -- just stayed the same. No point in posting. Last Wednesday (after staying the same on Monday) I decide to really TRY the Atkins diet and the first stage -- what he calls Induction. I've done pretty well in following it, although I have had a regular ice cream sandwich a couple of evenings. Otherwise, I've been eating only salad with regular dressing, meat, cheese (the real stuff, not the processed cheese food), and eggs. No bread, no pasta, no rollups, no sugar (except for the aforementioned ice cream sandwiches). When I weighed in this week I was down 4.2 pounds to 193.2. Cool.

Not that I believe I'll STAY down to 193.2 or below at WW weigh-in, but at least now I feel like I'm in control. Like I finally know how to do this. I finally figured out that if I eat carbs, I gain weight.

And to top it off, I feel GOOD. Not hungry, jittery, lightheaded, nothin'. I just feel good. I'm happy my weight is finally going down. I really believe in this low carb way of eating, and I believe people are just killing themselves by eating all the sugars and other carbs. I'm so glad I talked to Erma and finally figured it out for myself.

WW Week 14

Darn -- it happened again! Up 1.6 pounds again this week.

I wasn't really WATCHING the carbs as much as I did the first couple of weeks. We had spaghetti for supper two nights in a row (with garlic bread from Papa Murphy's one night, too), then Katie and McKenna were down over the weekend and we cooked out both evenings. Hot dogs with the buns and mac and cheese.

I've been scouring the web for low carb sites and I've found a lot of promising information. I really think this is the thing to do and the way to go about it. What's important is not finishing first or weighing the least when you get there. It's trying to be healthier and get rid more of this flab that's floatin' on my torso...

Regroup!

WW Week 13

Wow -- I am so psyched with this low carb diet! I lost another 1.6 pounds at our Weight Watchers meeting last night. This, plus the 1.6 pounds last Wednesday and the 3 pounds the first week I tried the low carb program... that makes 6.2 pounds in the past 3 weeks. I'm up to a loss of 13.6 pounds now. I'm thrilled, especially since I've just never been able to lose weight AT ALL before. This really seems to be the answer. I feel good, energetic, etc. Jenny and I walked for 45 minutes with the WW group last night. Still getting ready to do a 5K on July 11 at Lapping Park...

WW Week 12

This week our regular WW meeting was canceled because Monday was Memorial Day. Jenny wanted to go to Brandenburg for their meeting on Wednesday so we could weigh in and stay accountable. Kim, Joanie and Melissa decided to go, too. We all made the trek over there and I am happy to report that I lost another 1.6 pounds, for a total of 12! I'm one quarter of the way to my (personal) goal of 165!

Another big thing to me this week... it was on Entertainment Tonight that Melissa Joan Hart lost 42 pounds after the birth of her last child. The big deal was that it took her 14 months to lose it. YEA! I hated the fact that when Marie Osmond lost 45 pounds, they said she did it in, like, 4 months. For Pete's sake! Losses like that really deject someone like me. But 42 pounds in 14 months -- okay -- that's real. That's 3 pounds a month -- that's really real!

I think our walking group has decided to do the Lapping Park 5K on July 11. Jenny told Donna that I might be able to do team shirts for us, maybe with the new WW mascot, Hungry, on them. I'd be thrilled! But naturally, I'd get Jenny to help....

Another aside

I had dinner with several classmates from school last night. Linda Elsler, Sandy Sherman, Joy Kirchgessner, Mary Allen, Sharon Franks, and my best bud, Debbie. We ate at Tumbleweed. I was pretty good, bypassing the margaritas and having a 1/2 serving of chicken quesadillas. They were mostly meat with very little, if any, cheese. Good for me!

Debbie and I got to talking while the others were talking about other things, and I found out that she's doing WW too! Little bitty Debbie! She says she's having the same problems I am with the weight gain around the middle. At our age it's no doubt related to "menopot", but in my case it's way more -- it's FAT. She's always been small (5'-2") and petite; never more than about 130 pounds. She always loved to exercise, too. I remember in one reunion yearbook, she wrote that exercise was one of her "passions". We were on the opposite ends of the spectrum on that one! I hated exercise and avoided it as much as possible! Jenny and I have been walking 4-6 times a week for 1-1/2 to 2 miles at a time, only for the past 6 weeks or so. That's a major shift and achievement for me! It's still not "fun", but with Jenny, it's enjoyable. Back in high school 30+ years ago I was naturally thin, but after 25 years of eating whatever I wanted and hanging out on the couch, I got to this. Yuck...

Well, Debbie said she's kind of lost motivation, but I've definitely picked some up over the past couple of weeks. So I told her I'd share this blog with her. Even though the thing is posted on the world-wide web, I'm pretty darn sure no one has ventured to look at it. It would be too damn boring to peruse at length anyway. I just started keeping it for my own benefit, as a kind of diary to chart my progress, so I wasn't trying to interest anybody else. If it might help motivate anybody else, go ahead and take a look. Hope you can stay awake...

WW Week 11

Well, something worked! When I weighed in this past Monday evening at Weight Watchers, I was FINALLY down to 198! That's a 3.0 pound loss this week! I'm definitely realizing that this carb-cutting thing is the way to go.

The guys are working on a new portion of the pool deck at Mom's. Today I went up with them to get started with the post hole digging. When they ran to Longbottom & Hardsaw's to pick up lumber, I went to Mom's house to wait for them. I happened to see a couple of books that she's had for probably over a year, sitting on a table by the door. One is "Bottom Line's Super Foods Rx" and the other is "Food Cures: Breakthrough Nutritional Prescriptions for Everything from Colds to Cancer" by Reader's Digest.

I've been scanning the Reader's Digest book; especially the sections on Smart Carbs and Insulin Resistance, and so far it says pretty much the same thing that the Carbohydrate Addict's book said. It talks about the Glycemic Index (GI); pure glucose has a GI of 100, so the closer to 100 the GI number is, the more it raises blood sugar. Naturally, the lower GI foods don't cause spikes in blood sugar. Low GI foods are those with GI numbers of 55 and below. Anyway, there is a good list of GI values for LOTS of food to be found here. You can also google "glycemic index" and find many more.

I'm learning....

WW Week 10-1/2 -- is it an epiphany?

I'm getting really frustrated with the fact that I can't get below 200 pounds, especially when I just started a little over 209. At my 8th week, another girl was celebrating her 16th week and had lost about 25 pounds. As a matter of fact, Jenny did the same thing! Geeze! At this rate it will be a miracle if I don't quit first!

But this week something happened. On Tuesday I went to the funeral home to see Jack McGraw's family. On the way out I saw Irma Eschbacher pull in to a parking spot, so I waited to talk to her. She has lost a tremendous amount of weight -- so much that last summer I even asked a friend if she had had gastric bypass surgery. I waved her over, gave her a big hug and told her she was my hero -- and she most definitely is! I asked her what she did to lose so much weight. She said that her husband had been diagnosed with diabetes three years ago, so she decided to change the way they ate. They have nurse/dieticians that helped set up a diet to control his blood sugar, but basically they went low carb. She said it took her about a year to go from a size 18 to a size 6. She said she didn't know how much weight she lost, because she never weighs. Buck's sugar is now under control at around 123. They walk about 1/2 an hour a day.

Now to Sandy Puckett... she's lost about 30 pounds in about 6 months. She said the only way she can lose weight is to cut carbs.

I have a book about Carbohydrate Addicts by Drs. Richard and Rachel Heller. I picked it up a yard sale and it has sat on my bookshelf with my other weight loss books for a year or so. I happened to take a look at it for the first time this week. So much of what it says relates very closely to what I've been experiencing.

One week, right after Easter, I gained 5.2 pounds. When I went back over my WW tracking booklet, I saw that that week I ate so many carbs! I stayed within my WW points allowance, but I STILL gained over 5 pounds in one week! For lunch one day I had Chinese, with the related MSG and soy sauce. I didn't have any fried stuff (well, maybe 3-4 bite-size pieces of General Tso's chicken...) and ate mainly vegetables. But this book says that MSG and soy sauce stimulate your body to produce insulin, which in turn causes it to store fat.

The next night for supper we had spaghetti and bread. More carbs. The next day for lunch I had Campbell's vegetable soup, with its carrots, potatoes, corn, and little alphabet noodles, all of which are high in carbs. The soup was just veggie soup with very little protein. Two Special K protein bars because I was so hungry from the carbs that stimulated my appetite. Supper that night was more spaghetti. I remember this evening particularly -- Leonard was so tired that he laid down on the bed for a while to rest. I was so hungry that for the whole hour and a half that he slept, I ate. I counted my points and somehow stayed within my 24-point limit, but I ate carbs and more carbs! A Weight Watcher's brownie (only 2 points, but made with real sugar and flour), Puffcorn, an orange (fructose), a Weight Watcher's fudge bar (even if is IS sugar-free, it still stimulates your cravings to eat more!), AND another orange! Nothin' but carbs all day!

The next day I went to Noni's to take her some daylilies and hostas. Lunch was a spinach salad with grilled chicken from Applebee's. It was, I now realize, good for me in terms of carbs. But fried potatoes for supper. Saturday evening we went to El Nopalito. I'm sure we had chicken fajitas, but I'm also sure I had a margarita -- alcohol which turns to sugar! Sunday was pizza for lunch (carb crust), and a veggie grill burger with bun for supper. Veggie soup (carbs and salt) for lunch on Monday, a WW cookies and cream 1 point bar and a Hostess cupcake 100 calorie pack -- all carbs! I'm beginning to see that this might be my problem -- that carbs might be stimulating my appetite to just eat more and more.

So I'm going to try to follow this low-carb book, at least for a few weeks, and see if it makes a difference in my weigh-ins. I know I won't lose any huge amounts of weight (like 5 pounds a week), but if I can at least lose SOMEthing every week without going up and down, I'll be a believer in this Carb Addict idea.

I'm starting to realize that what you eat does affect your entire being. Food is medicine in a way. It can do bad things to you, or hopefully, it can do good things. All you have to do is realize it's power and potential and use it to your benefit.

WW Week 10

This just sucks! Back up 0.8 pound to 202.0. I'm never going to officially get under 200 pounds. I've been going to WW for 10 weeks now and have only lost 7.4 pounds! Now I know why my mom said she can't lose weight. I think I can't either. Plus I'm walking 1-1/2 to 2 miles a day, at least 4 times a week.

This week I'm going to try to follow the WW "good health guidelines" AND stay within the points values. But first and foremost I'm concentrating on eating my 5 veggies a day, 2 proteins, 3 dairies, 6 glasses of water, etc.

I ordered the book Donna told us about -- Eat Right for Your Type, about eating food that gets along with your blood type. Who knows... I'll see what it says about eating for type O.

WW Week 9

Down a little more -- minus 0.8 pounds this week. A loss is better than a gain! My "official" WW weight is now 201.2. My at home, naked weight has been below 200 for several days in a row now -- maybe it will stay that way.

WW Week 8

I'm getting tired of this... I was up 0.4 this week to 202.0. (Even though I know part of it is because of Aunt Flo...). I feel like I'm never going to get below 200 pounds for more than 15 minutes and STAY there. But I'm sticking with it -- it's only been 8 weeks, after all. That's a pound a week, average.

But my stinkin' brother went to see Dr. Filardo about 3 weeks ago and told him he was going to try to lose 10 pounds in 6 weeks. Darn him! He's lost 10 already and is now going for 20! I hate guys!

An aside - week 7

I was looking for some motivational quotes about weight loss, and I ran across this site: Laura's Weight Loss Journey. This lady lost almost 120 pounds in about 3 years. A terrific feat!

But she has a weight chart posted there, and I saw that since she reached her goal in January 2005, she has gained back 60 pounds of the weight she lost. This is just so sad, plus it's typical of most weight loss efforts. Dotti of Dotti's Weight Loss Zone lost 95 pounds in 1998, and by 2005 had gained back 86 pounds of it. She's working on it again, but it's just more proof that your body wants to be where it wants to be. Proof that you can't beat genetics and pre-dispositioning. Damn!

WW Week 7 -- Vindication!

This week I lost 6.2 pounds, for a total loss of 7.8. I tried to be good this week; to write down everything I ate and to keep within my 24 allotted points. Also not to snack too much or eat too much salt. And it paid off. I really think it was salt that killed me last week... too much Puffcorn and a salty margarita!

I'm so glad I didn't just quit last week after that horrendous gain. But a few weeks ago Joanie Mehling gained about 4 pounds and she said there was no way she gained 4 pounds of fat in one week. She just stuck with it and the next week, that weight was off again. It had to be water weight or something. Well, if I wouldn't have listened to her, I would have quit last week. Because, believe me, a gain of over 5 pounds in one week is enough to make you say, "To hell with it..." It's really discouraging. That's why I quit last fall. I gained about 3 pounds the day after Leonard's birthday party.

I feel like I've been doing this for a LONG time and I'm only down 7.8 pounds, but hey, I'm only on Week 7! So that's about a pound a week... that's what I should be losing.

Jenny, McKenna, Rex and I walked the Indian Creek Trail behind Keller's from the West Bridge to just past the North Bridge on Saturday. It was a nice walk and the weather was just perfect. Yesterday Jenny and I walked it again (and it was cold, rainy, and dreary), but this time we walked the whole thing all the way up to the YMCA. I checked the mileage today on ThinkMap and it's a mile. Both ways equal 2 miles. We also signed up for a 5K with WW for sometime in the summer. Our first "training" walk is Thursday in the hospital parking lot.

WW Week 6 -- backslider!

I didn't take the time to write last week, but I lost either 0.8 or 1.2 pounds. I dunno. One place she wrote that I lost 0.8. The other place she wrote that I lost 1.2. Who cares? Doesn't matter. Because this week I GAINED 5.2 pounds! Now I'm only down 1.6 pounds total. Geeze...

What the hell happened? I tried to eat good, but I was slacking and not writing down my points very well. It's possible that I ate some stuff and forgot to write it down and count it. Plus I ate out quite a bit last week. Leonard's mom had cataract surgery last Tuesday (he can't eat lunch alone...), so we ate at Shang Hai. Wednesday for lunch I had 2 fresco tacos from Tako Bull. Spaghetti for supper that night and the next. And I was SO hungry after supper for a few nights! I ate oranges, puffcorn, and fudgsicles -- probably 10 points worth a couple of evenings. Friday I took Noni some daylilies and hostas, and we went to Abblepee's for lunch. I had the WW salad for 5 points. Saturday it was El Nop's for chicken fajitas, chips, sour cream, guacamole, and a 16 ounce margarita! Sunday lunch was 1/2 of a Jack's cheese pizza.

Okay -- I get it. I wasn't good. Damn. I feel like I have to start all over again. Five weeks of counting and dieting, all for naught. Sh*t.

Jenny and I even walked twice on the treadmills at the hospital. Not a lot, but a start. Mine said I burned about 160 calories each time.

How one EARTH am I ever going to get down to 165 pounds if I can't even get below 200? I've gotta find some inspiration someplace... My body is no different than anyone else's. Other people at WW have lost 25, 30, 40, 50 plus pounds. Damn it -- I should be able to do it, too!

I'll look for some inspiration and come back to post it later on...

WW Week 4

I was down 0.8 of a pound this week , meaning I have lost a total of 5.6 pounds so far. I know I still have a long way to go, but not as far as I had a month ago!

WW Week 3

I shouldda known that after having a week in which I lost 4.6 pounds, lightning couldn't strike twice! This week I was only down 0.2 pounds, but at least I was DOWN and not up!

Seems everyone I talked to at the meeting this week either just lost a little bit, stayed the same, or gained. Must be something about the joy of spring that makes us want to over-indulge...

An aside -- spring is springing!

Last week, March 11, was my oldest son, Josh's, 27th birthday. That was the first day I noticed that the neighbor's willow tree was taking on the slightest of green hues along it's branches. When I left work that day, I saw a few daffodils in bloom.

Yesterday, St. Patrick's Day, was my youngest son, David's, 25th birthday. Forsythia are blooming now, some sparsely and some much more profusely, depending on the exposures in their own little corner of the world.

I just had to make note of it... Spring is my favorite season! The hope of renewal, blooms bursting out to rival a wedding bouquet. Spring is indeed springing, and it's not even official until March 20th. Thank heaven the long cold winter is finally over!

The Second Week

Last week I started my Weight Watchers journey. At sign-in I weighed 209.4 -- yeah, more than I thought I would weigh. Okay. So I followed my points values faithfully all week and didn't go over my allotted 24 per day. Last night was my second meeting and I lost (drum roll, please...) 4.6 pounds! I am very proud of myself! I'm down to 204.8. Woo hoo!

I know that you lose more the first week, and I don't expect to lose that much any other week. I know I'll be lucky to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week. But this first week gives me the boost I need to keep going.

By the way... why do they call it "losing" weight, after all? You lose something unintentionally. Accidentally. You turn around and it's gone. "Oh, darn! I lost my (whatever)." But you don't "lose" weight... you have to fight it off every step of the way.

One day at a time... one meal at a time...

The First Step

I haven't always been fat, and I'm not super fat now. I'm 5'-7" and I weigh 208 pounds. (yes, I know I'm really fat, but I'm in denial... OK?) For about the past ten years I've been overweight, and I'm almost obsessed about losing this weight. But the sad part is, I'm always ALMOST ready to do something about it. "I need to lose some weight, and I will... after this half-gallon of ice cream is gone." "...after Valentine's Day." "...after the birthday cake is gone." On and on and on.

Heart problems, like clogged arteries, run in my family. We get it from my dad's dad. Papaw was the only person I (as a kid) ever knew who actually had a "heart doctor." He had a quintuple bypass in his 60's. My brother had heart attacks at 37, 42, and 46. He has five stents and had triple bypass surgery on March 3, 2008 when he was 46. I had a blocked artery at 48 and got two stents on October 6, 2006. My dad has two stents.

At 5'-7" and 208 pounds, my BMI is 32.6. A BMI of over 26 is too much. According to one website I looked at (http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm), only 24% of women are heavier than me! I need to face facts -- I'm not a little overweight -- I'm actually obese! And if I don't start doing something about it, it's just going to get worse. I'm 50, for pete's sake! It's not going to get any easier. My mom is now 70 and weighs about 275. That's in my future if I don't DO something and quit just thinking about doing something.

Now I weigh 208. A few years ago, my weight was around 185. A few years before that, it was around 165. Every five years or so, it seems to "creep up" by at least 10 pounds. But it's not really "creeping"... For 50 years I have eaten what I want, when I want, and how ever much I want. And this is where it's gotten me. I have to start to get some discipline into my eating.

In July, 2008, I joined Weight Watchers. I just planned on going for a few months until I learned "the secrets". Then I'd be able to do on my own. In the ten weeks I went to the meetings, I lost 12 pounds. "Hey, I know what to do and how to do it..." I said with my cheap little smile. Heh, heh, heh. So I quit going to the meetings and started saving myself $10 a week. Then whatdya think happened? Yup -- those 12 pounds raced back on!

It's now March, 2009, and I've been planning on starting to work on losing weight again. HA! I'll do it for a couple of days, then eat 4 scoops of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and peanuts on it before bed. I've come to realize that I can't do it alone. I can't do it unless somebody else is checking up on me. And I've got to PAY somebody to do it.

So next Monday evening, I'm trudging back to Weight Watchers with my brand new Monthly Pass. And I'm not quitting. I hope I can reach 165 pounds. And even when I do, I STILL can't quit, because if I do, the pounds will "creep" back on again.

I'm going to try to keep a chart here. A diary of my weight loss efforts. You know the old saying... Try, try again...