Lowering the Feed Limit

I haven’t given up on Weight Watchers. I got a nice note from someone who reads this, which amazes me - that someone reads this, I mean - and she was concerned because I sounded so discouraged about the slowness of my weight loss. She recommended interval training, which according to what I’ve read in my own research and talking to Beloved, is something worth pursuing. I don’t know that I can make it the only thing in my exercise plan: I just can’t “live” on only four extra activity points (half an hour work out) three or four times a week.

Not a recommended work out plan!

However, I did it once last week and then the next time I worked out I did the same kind of thing for half an hour and then finished up 45 minutes on the bike (45 minutes total including the half hour she suggested). I was down 1.8 this Monday! I didn’t blog last week, but I was down .8 that weigh-in.

I didn’t get any workouts in this past weekend because I was at BabelCon, a local sci-fi/fantasy con, where I sat at a merchant table with two other local authors. I sold 8 books, so I was pretty happy and got my picture taken with several celebrities:

Me with Brave Knights

Darth Vader was, of course, there.

John Hertzler played Chancellor Martok on Deep Space Nine. He was/is my favorite Klingon (next to Worf, of course) and in my mind the most romantic.

Here’s what he said about his wife when talking to Worf about marriage:

“We are not accorded the luxury of choosing the women we fall in love with. Do you think Sirella is anything like the woman I thought I’d marry? She is a mercurial, arrogant, prideful woman who shares my bed far too infrequently for my taste. And yet… I love her deeply. We Klingons often tout our prowess in battle and our desire for honor and glory above all else… but how hollow is the sound of victory without someone to share it with. And Honor gives little comfort to a man alone in his home… and in his heart. “

I mean, come on. How could you not want to be next to this man? And he called me “baby,” so what are you going to do?

My friend, and fellow author, Jo Templeton, and me with Richard Hatch of two different kinds of Battlestar Galactica!

This week has been going well. I’m working on a new book and pretty excited about it. I’ll talk a little more about it at The Romancechick Speaks.

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We’re not going to talk about how Weight Watchers was due to a bad (high) number on the scale which is in no way indicative how how I’ve been saying on program.

Today, kiddies, we’re going to talk about food!!!

I always put something in the crockpot on Sundays because we go to 6 pm mass. Beloved and the Girl sing in the contemporary choir at 6 but they have to be there at 5 for rehearsal. This makes eating dinner problematic for us.

Anyway, on a suggestion from a friend on plurk, I found this site: A Year of Crockpotting. I love my crock pot. Always have, even when I was such a lazy housekeeper that I had to put a chore card in my box that said, “Wash crock pot.” If I hadn’t had that card, sometimes the crock pot would sit for days with dead food in it.

Okay, that was my confession for the day!

Anyway, this summer I’ve been using the crock pot on Thursdays, too. Thursday is the day the Boy has piano lessons at 3 and art lessons at 6. Since Beloved doesn’t get home until after we leave for art, that means that I couldn’t start dinner until after 7 and the crock pot is just easier.

I found this recipe: Super Easy Crock Pot Lasagna. We tried this last night.

Now, first off, it was yummy and easy.

I went to the store first thing yesterday morning to get the supplies. I looked for very lean hamburger or ground turkey, but for some reason at 7:30 am, our grocery store had nothing like this. Side note: the latest flyer says ground turkey is on sale this week!

So, since I didn’t want to try running around to some other store, I got creative and bought a bag of broccoli slaw.

Other than that, I made this (oh, wait, I got fat free cottage cheese instead of ricotta) just as she said, layering everything and turning the crock pot on low.

It was yummy. The noodles were a little mushy, so I may have put too much water in, but it tasted good and got the family’s approval. The great thing, okay two great things:

1. No meat, so we can eat it tonight, too! (Sweet!)
2. Only 6 points according to WW Recipe Builder, the way I made it!

Next - Rice Krispie Treats in the crock pot???

Seriously, spammers, no one honestly believes this kind of comment:

I read similar article also named 12/7 - Lattes and Lats, and it was completely different. Personally, I agree with you more, because this article makes a little bit more sense for me

is real. Wow, my post on loving my lattes at CC’s and working on my back muscles is contraversial? Who knew?

I love Weight Watchers. I really do. I think they have a great program, they teach good stuff about nutrition and exercise and making good choices. I love the support system that CAN develop with a good leader and a good group.

I’m wondering if there is something wrong with my system that it doesn’t work for me. I’m on immunosuppressents and I don’t know if they inhibit weight loss and there seems to be some chance that I’m having some thyroid trouble which might account for some of my problems, but in FIVE WEEKS of tracking and exercise and making good food choices I haven’t lost ANYTHING!

Okay, let’s put this in perspective. The week I had the huge point blow out by going to Cold Stone, I lost .6.

The next week I lost 1.4. Cool, two pounds in two weeks. I thought I had things under control.

The next week (week three) I gained two pounds! I thought, hmmm, maybe it was sodium from the individual pizza I’d had for dinner Sunday night - which I had the points for! So, okay, maybe sodium. Now it was three weeks with no loss.

Then last week (week four) I lost THREE POUNDS! Okay, I thought, it was the sodium and I’m down another pound. Good deal. Three pounds in four weeks. Not too shabby.

Yesterday I went to WW right before I had to run to the endocrinologist and I had GAINED THREE POUNDS! Gang, I’ve done the same thing all of these weeks. Okay, maybe last week I had a few chocolate chip cookies, that I put in my tracker, and kept count of my points and exercised and all that.

So now I’m at five weeks with no loss. This is getting to the point where I don’t even freak out anymore about gains. I do the same thing week after week and have no idea what the scale is going to say.

I’m not even worrying about working for WW anymore. If it happens, it happens. I’m going to tell the Territorial Director to take me off the employment rolls just so I don’t feel like I’m “stealing” from the company by getting the smoothies at half price due to my employee card. It’ll mean paying for the monthly pass again, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

Saturday Special

In an effort to actually have something interesting to say, I plan to do these kinds of things as well as updating you all on my weight loss journey. See below for today’s news.

It’s Perfect ~ Fill In The Blanks~

A perfect day is one where I don’t have to do anything but relax and read or watch something I’ve DVR’d. No cleaning, no picking out clothes for a child, no cooking, just me and whatever I want to do?

A perfect dinner is Oh, seriously? Something cooked by someone else, preferably one with no points but tastes yummy and fattening and ends with the most luscious dessert known to man, still with no points?

A perfect evening is home with my husband, the kids in bed or at least in their rooms. Beloved and I are watching Battlestar Galactica or some other show of ours the kids don’t like and we’re eating popcorn and having fun commenting on the action?

A perfect vacation is one I can’t have anymore - a week at that cabin in Canada I love so much with nothing to do but lounge around, swim or sleep or read or whatever. No phone, no computer, no obligations.

In weight loss news, I’m going on five weeks of sticking to my points completely and the third week of actually trying to eat the points not just horde them and end up with at ton Sunday night. I’m down two pounds since Theresa suggested I actually EAT. I went a little overboard last night because I finished my book (see The Romancechick Speaks for more info) and I mowed the lawn today (front and back) and planned to not log those activity points, but Beloved suggested I just track EVERYTHING.

I found the coolest stuff: Weight Watchers Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream! HEAVEN! I love mint chocolate chip but hate when the chips are tiny. WW uses chunks - relatively speaking, but they aren’t the mini chips they use in the Cookie Dough ice cream. I bought some more of the mint today as the family has regular ice cream for them.

Tomorrow is my usual go to the gym day. Our Y opens at 1 and closes at 5, but we have to be at mass at five for Beloved and the Girl to practice with the choir. Usually, we go as soon as we can after 1 and I exercise for about an hour which gives me time to get home, shower, get the Boy showered and dressed and relax a bit before we have to leave around 4:45.

Next week is VBS at church and I should go tomorrow afternoon to get ready, but I’m doing the drama part. My part is done first thing every morning and we use the sanctuary. Because of daily mass at 8:45 and VBS beginning at 9 and my part at 9:30 there isn’t really anything I can set up.  I looked over Monday’s “performance” and I don’t need to have costumes or anything special so I think I’ can just wait until I’m done on Monday to figure out where things are and talk to my helpers. We will need sticky dots and “caution tape” which I will ask about when I get there before mass tomorrow or when I arrive early Monday morning.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Things have been working better since my talk with Theresa two weeks ago. I went out and binged with Cold Stone ice cream two weeks ago (that Monday) and I ended up losing .6 that week. This week, after not exactly binging but trying to eat more points, I lost 1.4. So that’s two pounds in two weeks. Pretty good.

This past Monday I did a bit of a binge, too, but I didn’t actually count points. I estimated and marked them off my tracker. So, I’ve been trying to make up for it a bit by working out for 95 minutes on Tuesday and I’m going to the Y this morning, too. I don’t want to, but I really need to.

Hope everyone else is having a good day.

There are no deadlines.

This is the affirmation I used last night when I was going to sleep. Since I hit menopause I often have trouble falling asleep and I try some relaxation techniques I learned at a women’s retreat years ago combined with some stuff I heard about from a woman who used meditation to help cure her cancer.

Theresa told me yesterday that stress is possibly one reason the weight isn’t coming off (in fact it’s jumping back on!) so I need to relax about it, but I know me. I’ll try to relax all week, but next Monday, driving to weigh-in, I’ll be stressed!

So, I have to keep telling myself that there are no deadlines for this. Even though I want to get to the weight I need to be at to work for WW, I have to stop stressing. Theresa said her goal is to get all her employees to their goal, more so than getting them to working weight.

I have to stop worrying, so I keep telling myself there are no deadlines.

Well, I did it again. I did everything right (so I thought). I tracked, made sure I drank my water, exercised.

Up 1 pound.

I was SO DISCOURAGED! Honestly, I might not have stayed for the meeting if my friend Jeri hadn’t been with me. I told the receptionist that this was impossible. I have been working hard for two weeks and have been up both weeks. Now I need to lose SIX pounds to get where I need to be to work for  Weight Watchers. I seriously wonder if I shouldn’t have even applied.

However, God always has a plan and He answered my prayers about this. Our regular leaders, who is the woman who interviewed me and offered me the job, wasn’t there today. Instead, we had the Territorial Manager!

The receptionist, Laura, asked me if I wanted to talk to Theresa, and I said I did because for the last few weeks Beloved has asked me why I don’t talk to someone and I didn’t realize that I could stay after the meeting to talk. I know, probably stupid, but today I decided I really needed to figure out what’s going on.

Theresa was wonderful. I got kinda emotional because I feel like I’m failing. I mean it took me from August to the first of the year to lose THREE stinkin’ pounds and I still haven’t lost the next three, and I’ve regained. It’s a mess.

Plus, the stress of worrying that someone is going to step forward and say, “Hey you can’t lose the five pounds you need to lose to start training? How are you ever going to get to your goal?”

First thing Theresa said when I told her that I am a new hire and I want to be a leader was, “I want you to be one.” We talked and she said that I don’t owe her anything and I should stop stressing about the time it’s taking me to lose this. She said it’s my journey and my experience will help someone else someday.

Then we talked about what I’ve been eating and what I’ve been doing and she suggested that (1) the stress I feel every week about this might be keeping weight on and (2) I really need to eat more! That blew me away, but she’s right in that every week I try to eat a little less and I don’t use, usually, even half my weekly allowance points. It’s possible that since I’m working out so much (yesterday I did an hour and a half to make up for a wedding reception on Saturday) that I need to eat all my points so my body doesn’t hold on to things.

She asked if I could feel a difference in my clothes and I said all week I’ve been walking around saying that I feel smaller. She said she thinks I’m doing everything right but I need to relax a little. She did say we might have to work hard when I do get to goal in the maintenance part so I don’t gain too easily.

She suggested that today I do a “blow out” (her words) and use 20 of my weekly points allowance. So, we went to Cold Stone and had ice cream. I figured out that mine was 23 points!!! AHHH! That seems so wrong, but you know I’ll be careful the rest of the week and I’ll hit the gym tomorrow.

Maybe it’ll shock my system and I can get back on track. Theresa said she expects that when the weight does come off I’ll drop two or three pounds. Here’s hopin’!

I weighed in today. I was up 1.2. I am so frustrated I cried in the car and when I got home. I did everything right. I wrote everything down. I watched my points. I just don’t know what happened, unless the popcorn I had last night at the movies (got a much smaller portion than I normally would have and had NO butter) had salt and I’m retaining fluid. I even wrote that stuff down.

I feel like I’ll never lose these five pounds so I can actually start receptionist training. I only needed to lose 3.8 and now all that’s shot to hell. Sometimes I think it would be better to just not try to work for them at all.

Things have really been hectic here. Lots of news, though.

I got hired by Weight Watchers, but because I can never do anything easily, it turns out that possibly I shouldn’t have been.

See, WW has this rule, which makes complete sense, that says that to be hired you have to be within 10 pounds of your goal weight. And I’m not. Not really even close to being 10 pounds from my GOAL weight - 143 lbs. That what I was the morning of my transplant and it’s been kind of a “landmark” for me.

I filled out the questionnaire online, stating honestly that I’m not within that 10 pounds range, but I got an interview anyway. I was honest all the way through and still was offered a job. I figured they really need people in the Baton Rouge area.

I went to my first training session and knew something was odd when all the other women there were at lifetime, and here I am, at last weigh in, 24 pounds from my goal. I realized that when they say “goal” they mean the healthy range for your height. For me that’s 155-124 (that last number may be off a bit). Well, at 168, at last weigh in, I’m not that far now. Only three pounds and I’ll be within 10 of the range.

So, as of this writing, I’ve gotten my employee ID card, policies and procedure manual and I’m getting emails from the territory manager and all that, but I haven’t heard anything about the next step, mentoring.

Last night I got an email from the woman who interviewed me (and who is now going to be the leader at my regular Monday afternoon meetings) asking a bunch of us how mentoring is going. I sent her an email back, telling her I haven’t heard anything about mentoring, and she says they are just waiting for me to hit 165. It would have been nice if I’d known that.

However, I was gone this past weekend in Ohio at my mom’s surprise 80th birthday party, so I missed last Monday’s weigh in. And I was sick before that so I haven’t been to the gym in almost two weeks. I have to get there today because I really need to hit that weight number!

And they say this shouldn’t be stressful!! It seems it’s taking me a long time to lose a simple five pounds!