Measurements

This past week I went to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, TWICE on Thursday, Friday and Sunday!  I am pretty pleased with myself and I hope I can keep up this good habit for quite some time.... especially over the holidays when it's so easy to not do anything, especially once school is out for Christmas break!

I have to not look at the scale (or so I'm told), because the weight is not coming off. As of this morning I am 128.2. I decided to take my measurements today too. If I am not going to look at the scale then I need to look at the inches ;-)  I'm recording them here so I can look back and see the changes (hopefully) each month. 

So, as of Monday November 14th:

Bust: 37"

Waist: 33"  !!!!! :-o

Hips: 37 1/2"

Right thigh 20 1/2"

Right bicep: 10 1/2"

I plan on eating good this week. AND I must start drinking more water. I've made a menu plan from the Clean Eating website. I will try to post that later.

I'm back!!!

Surprise, it's me, I'm back. Well I haven't been anywhere really, I just stopped posting here for a while because I wasn't really watching what I was eating and I was totally NOT exercising at all. Same old story, I just got out of the habit and got lazy!  Sad to say that my weight has crept back up to 128lb and I just can't seem to lose anything!

Not for the want of trying. . .  I joined my local SNAP gym a few weeks ago. My neighbor/friend Cheryl was going which motivated me to join again. I used to go to Gold's gym but canceled my membership after a year cos I just got sick of going. This Snap gym is much closer to us, just 10 minutes away. SO much better. . . so much so that I even went twice today.  I've been going about 3 times a week for the past few weeks, trying to eat better. Cheryl is trying to follow the Eat Clean Diet, so I'm trying to follow along too. Not being really strict with the diet though, just trying to make 'clean' meals and snack on healthy things like almonds and greek yogurt. 

So, things are going well in the 'look after me' department, but what's bothering me is that I'm not losing weight? Could it be because I'm now gaining muscle? I just really used to like to see the scale show a loss after a few days of eating better, but right now it just seems to be creeping up. I was 123.5 a few weeks ago and slowly it's gone up. Now even eating right it's not going down again :-( 

The holidays are approaching so I don't want to get too strict with my diet, but I'm thinking I might need to go back to WW and actually count my points? Or at least count my calories which I'm not even doing either. 

Anyway, I thought I'd make a quick update in here so that when I browse back through my entries (which I often like to do) I can see where I stand, what I weigh and what I'm doing with regards to exercise.

STS Challenge - Update

I say update because if I'm honest I don't even know what week we're in now! According to Debbie's blog we're starting week 9, so I am usually posting about the week prior, which would be week 8. But I missed posting the weekend before that (which was for week 7), so I'm just gonna call this an overall update!

So, where to start? Well, I haven't gained any weight over the last couple of weeks, BUT I haven't lost any either. I've actually been trying a new diet called Slimming World. Has anyone heard about it/seen it? It was featured in a magazine a couple of weeks ago, and it's from England. My sister has actually done it before but right now she's sticking with WW PointsPlus (or ProPoints as they call it in the UK).  I stopped doing the WW cos I was sick of counting points, then I was just counting calories and to be honest I got rather sick of that too. The SW diet says you don't need to count anything, and it allows you to eat as much pasta, rice, potatoes as you like?!! I know, sounds crazy doesn't it. There's a lot more to it than that, and it's really hard to get all of the information about it right now, even though they've had groups set up and running in TX for the past year. There's no groups near me so I can't even go along to buy the literature. Joining on line is out of the question because based on the exchange rate they want $160 for a 3 month subscription!  

Anyway, all that said, I only stuck with SW for a week. Honestly I don't think it will work for me eating pasta and potatoes all the time, although I didn't put any weight on, I did always feel bloated! Not a good feeling. SO, this week I've decided to re-read my South Beach Diet book!  I probably sound crazy jumping from one diet to another, but it just keeps me motivated to eat healthy. As you probably know, South Beach is all about eating low carb with healthy whole grains etc (after the first two weeks) This week I am doing phase one but I think next week I'll introduce whole wheat bread for breakfast and some fruit. Eating lean protein and salads for dinner is always a good thing, so hubby and I will be trying to stick to that for a while.

Hope everyone else is staying strong on the challenge. I hope to get by and read some blogs this week.

STS Challenge - week 6

I wrote a post mid week below this one, so I won't be doing much of an update tonight. I'm happy to say that after last weekends 'binge' and gain I did lose 2lb this week following the Flat Belly Diet :-) This was one of the lunches I mentioned . . .

 It looks very bland, but surprisingly very filling! My problem is the 2lb I lost doesn't seem to stay gone for long, we went out to a Cuban restaurant with friends last night and I ate 'rubbish' today! So no telling what the scale will say tomorrow. I think at this rate I'll be just glad to not have gained any more weight by the time this challenge is over, because I just can't seem to lose any permanently!

The one thing lacking this past week was exercise. All I did was one day of  Jillian Michaels Shred! So, some new goals are needed I think (realistic ones!):

1. Track calories and keep within 1200 per day

2. Treadmill Mon, Wed, Thurs

3.Drink 640z water each day

4. Take Vitimins

Not so much new goals, but ones I want to hopefully check off a list each day to keep myself accountable. I CAN DO THIS! 

Getting serious!

I'm typing this on my iPad, it's the first time I've tried doing so. Only problem with iPad is I can't upload any photos! But I thought I'd write a quick update (for myself mainly) and I'll post pics next time, probably Sunday when I update for the STS challenge.

So, after gaining 3lb over the 4th July weekend (including a few days before that too), I decided I needed to take drastic measures to get back on track! I started the Flat Belly Diet 4 Day Jumpstart program! I have the Flat Belly Diet book but I've never done the full diet, mainly because their meals seem to be quite large and the main program is based on about 1500 cals a day. I need to stick to just 1200 cals a day if I want to see any loss on the scale, but their 4 day Jumpstart is really good and I've done it before and know it works for me. Basically it helps to eliminate bloat which is probably what I have (I know that's what I have)and it helps me quickly lose the 2 or 3 pounds I've usually gained. The diet is very bland, but the surprising thing is I'm never hungry AND I've already dropped 2lb in two days!

A typical day looks like this:
breakfast,
1 cup of cornflakes
1cup of skim milk
1/2cup of unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 cup of raw or roasted sunflower seeds (I buy the raw organic ones, then toast them myself, they're much crunchier that way)

Lunch:
4oz deli turkey
1 low fat string cheese
1 pint of cherry tomatoes!

Pretty bland lunch but it really does fill me up.

Snack (I usually have this about 3pm)
1 smoothie, made with 1 cup of skim milk, 1 cup of frozen blueberries and 1 tbsp of flaxseed oil stirred in

Dinner:
4 oz baked tilapia
1/2 cup of brown rice
1 cup of green beans (the frozen kind)

You also drink what they call "sassy water" which is water with lemon, cucumber, ginger and mint infused in it overnight. I usually just put lemon and cucumber in my pitcher and put it
in the fridge.

Lunch yesterday was 3oz canned tuna, 1cup steamed carrots and 1 string cheese! Lol:-) it really does look like diet food, but it works, and I'm not hungry, and I only have two more days left:-) then I'll get back to counting my calories.

Off Track :-(

I didn’t get a chance to post last Sunday because I had friends visiting from outta town (out of country to be exact, my bloggy friend Sue came to visit from Canada – you can read that post on my daily blog if you want to HERE).

The few days after my last post were going really well, then I met Sue at the Outlets in San Marcos on Wednesday ! That day was ok too, I didn’t get on the treadmill but I did get to walk over 11,000 steps, and burn over 300 calories, and I didn’t go crazy at lunch, just a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s (well, ok I had the fries too). The next day wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. I made myself get on the treadmill but my legs were killing me from the day before! Ate well for the first half of the day and then . . . .  you can insert ‘the rest is history’ here!!  I wouldn’t say I’ve been off track since then, I’ll be honest and say I totally derailed! Sue came to stay at ours with her hubby that Saturday and stayed for the 4th July festivities at our neighbors. Honestly, I’ve been eating whatever I like since then, and not surprising have gained 3LB !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :-( I only have myself to blame!

I need to get back on track! I’ve put off again this week and have no reason or excuse for doing so. TOMORROW I will be back on track. This is exactly what happened last summer, I got off track, started eating whatever I liked, told myself I wasn’t overweight, so I could eat anything I wanted and didn’t exercise. I gained over 1olb by Thanksgiving.  Ok, so I may not really need to lose much weight, but I do need to stop eating the junk food AND I need to get back to exercising at least 5 times a week.

We are only half way through this 12 week challenge – I am NOT giving up! I’ll be linking up with Debbie this week, and reading other blogs to help me get my motivation back too.

If you’re here reading from the STS challenge, thanks for stopping by. I’m hoping to visit all the link-ups this week.

A much better week – STS Week #3

Hooray, I’m happy to report I had a much better week this week. For starters I lost 1.2lb (I’m currently 123.2lb) :-) Because it’s getting too hot to run/walk outside, I went on the treadmill, and managed to do that 5 times this week. Here’s the run down:

Monday – 30 minutes treadmill (total calories burned all day 140)

Tuesday – 32 minutes treadmill (total calories burned all day 241)

Wednesday – day off! (head was aching from sinus/allergy issues)

Thursday – 35 minutes treadmill (total calories burned all day 326)

Friday – 30 minutes treadmill (total calories burned all day 247)

Saturday – 32 minutes treadmill (total calories burned all day 242)

Sunday – day off! But still burned 111 calories doing 30 minutes of yard work!

The treadmill will tell me how many calories I burned doing the 30 minute walk/jog interval training, but my pedometer also clocks other calories burned from the extra steps I take all day. So the number of cals I’ve been pluggin in to MyFitnessPal.com is the total for both.

These were my 3 goals for last week

1. Measure out 64oz of water and put in the fridge, make sure I drink at least 64oz EVERY DAY!  I did drink more water but wasn’t measuring out the 64 oz, so I want to aim for that again this week.

2. TRACK MY CALORES – 1200 per day. I’ve kept my net calories below 1200 all week (going over just one night by 92 calories) using the MyFitnesspal app on my Ipad.

3. Walk/Run on the treadmill for 30 minutes Mon-Fri. As you can see from my log above, I didn’t do Mon – Fri BUT I did do 5 days this week ;-)

I’m still enjoying an eggwhite omelet with laughing cow cheese in the middle for breakfast. Sometimes I have a Vitatop muffin with it, other times an Eggo low fat waffle. This really keeps me full for a good few hours. I notice if I just have cold cereal and milk, I can be hungry again in just half an hour!

Butternut squash was ready in the garden this week, so I made one of my favorite soups (butternut squash soup, from Paula Deen). I had it a few lunch times with another favorite – spinach salad with goats cheese and berries.  I have more squash this week so I’ll be making more soup.

    Spaghetti squash also from the garden this week, made a lovely alternative for me when we had spaghetti pasta and meatballs! I had the squash with a low calorie cabernet sauce I had made and put in the freezer.

SO, my goals for this week:

1) Measure out 64 oz water/iced tea and keep in the fridge. Drink at least 64oz every day.

2) Do 30 minutes on the treadmill 5 times this week.

3) and a new goal . . .  do upper body toning for 15 minutes (using my Reebok dvd) for 3 days – Mon, Wed, Fri.

4) Still track my calories daily, using MyFitnessPal.com

So, how did you do this week? I’m off to check the Mr Linky on Debbie’s site and make a few visits ;-)