Are You Gonna Eat That?

This week has been great...and not so much.

Great in that my mommy came over for a visit. We shopped til we dropped, we laughed, joked, had fun, played with the kids, and just all around had a great time.

Not so much in that we ate. And I mean ATE. If it wasn't nailed down or crawling away, I ate it this week. Think it wasn't so bad? Let me give you some examples: Fries, ice cream, cheeseburgers, breakfast burritos, soda, more fries, Orange Chicken and Rice from Panda Express, and still more fries. Oh, and part of a grilled cheese sandwich that my daughter wouldn't eat. Because I may have acted like a pig, but that sandwich could not be wasted! I am frugal! Where's my medal?

Anyhoo, how have you guys been? Doing well? Eating right? No? Well, join the club. But from this moment on, I am back on the wagon again. (that wagon must have great shocks for all the jumping on and off I am doing). I am going to go get a big ole glass of water with lemon and work on flushing all the preservatives and fats out of my system. I am going to get better sleep. I am going to exercise. I am going to be tired.

And also? I just found out I am going here, too:
www.loewshotels.com/en/Hotels/Lake-Las-Vegas-Resort/Overview.aspx

The good thing is I am sure there will be absolutely NO fattening food there to tempt me. None whatsoever.

Question: Have you ever eaten so much that you wondered where you managed to put it all and why you still didn't feel satisfied?

Friday Weigh In

How'd everyone do this week? Meeting your goals? Drinking your water? Getting your exercise? Eating half of a large Chocolate Extreme Blizzard from Dairy Queen the night before you weigh in? Oh, wait. That was me. Never mind.

Any which way, today's numbers on the scale are 169.9, which is a 1.1 lb gain over last week. Well, wooo-hoooo for me. Of course I would gain following a week where I lost 4.2 lbs. What else would I do?

We interrupt this pity party to bring you more pictures of Missie's kids. And to shut her up.

New Poll, New Poll!

Check out the soda pop poll over there on the right and 'fess up...How much of the stuff are ya drinkin'? Reaching for a soda when you know that it's water you need?

Yeah, me too. Guilty as charged.

I think of a tall icy glass of diet soda as a treat for being good all day. We can have it, but remember...everything in moderation.

Will have an actual post with words and thoughts and everything later in the week. Too much work to do now. Wah.

Will now go drink soda....

Mommy, should you really be bathing in that bubbly brown stuff?

Back in the Saddle Again

Happy Monday, Everyone! Say Cheese!

One thing I have always enjoyed about being on Weight Watchers was the realistic approach to eating and losing weight. When I first started WW, I assumed that they would meet with me and teach me how to reach my perfect goal weight, which was 133 pounds. Why 133, you ask? That is what I weighed when I got married many moons ago. That is what I weighed in the pictures where I look so young and happy and skinny. That, I thought, is what I need to be in order to have a nice looking body again.

Imagine my surprise when I joined WW and they didn't even talk to me about where I wanted to be at the "end" of my journey. Instead, they taught me to focus on losing 10% of my body starting body weight. Since I started at 187.2, that meant I had to lose 18 lbs before the leaders would discuss a more long reaching goal with me. At first I was confused because, didn't they WANT or NEED to know where I expected to be? What's up with that?

I realized that there was a method to their madness. WW figures that if you can lose the first 10% of your body weight, whatever it happens to be, then you are more likely to continue on your program. It might be hard to tackle the 54.2 lbs I wanted to lose all in one chunk, but I could handle 18. After 14 months on the program, 9 of which I didn't stick to it very well and basically stalled my own weight loss, I finally made my first 10% on Friday. I am now 168.8. Yippee! WW gives you a cool keychain with a 10 on it as a reminder of what you have achieved. I worked hard for that keychain, people, and it is happy I am to have it.

Since joining WW, I have become way more realistic in my goals and my view about my body. I will probably never see 133 again in this lifetime. And you know what? That's okay with me. I could possibly reach 133 again if I did nothing but devote myself to diet and exercise and worked out with a personal trainer and hired a chef to cook special meals and forbade my husband from ever bringing pizza into the house and brought on a nanny to raise my children and a maid to clean my house. In that instance, I am sure I could reach 133. But you know what else? I am choosing to live my life, not live to reach an almost impossible goal.

WW says a healthy weight for my age and height is 144. So that's my new long-range goal. Eleven pounds more than what my "ideal" was ain't bad, considering my ideal was fifteen years and two kids ago. My new immediate goal is 160. That is eight pounds away. Well, eight and change. I can do that. I can totally do eight pounds. And after that? I will set a new short term goal and reach that. I am in this for the long haul. Once I lose this weight, I do not want to see it again...and have to re-lose it again.

So here's today's challenge for those of you on the road to a healthy weight. Find a short term goal for yourself. Something that is attainable, but you may have to work a little to get there. Something not so easy that the attaining of it doesn't hold much value. Write that goal down and post it in a place you are sure to see it every day. Repeat to yourself, "I can do this. I can lose **pounds by November **" or whatever your particular goal is.

Remember to be realistic. If you have fifty pounds to lose, you are probably not going to do it by Thanksgiving, barring one of your appendages getting cut off in a freak farming accident. Health professionals say that a healthy weight loss is 1-2 lbs per week. Get a calendar out and figure how much you can lose if you are to diet alone. Then figure if you worked out 3 times a week along with diet, how much could you lose. Then make a plan and stick to it. It does more for our psyche and self-esteem and our will power if we are able to keep the goals we set for ourselves. You will actually be better at this weight loss thing the longer you do it, and the more goals you reach.

Remember that I am pulling for you. You can do this. We can do this. We can have the healthy bodies that God intended for us before the devil invented chocolate chip cookie dough.

Go forth and make a plan! Set a goal! Drink your water! And come do my laundry while you're at it!

If you feel comfortable doing so, tell me what your weight loss goals are. How can I help you? What kind of things would you like to see up on this site? Do you need the accountability of someone semi-nagging you to get you going? Because I totally have a Masters' in Nagging. Just ask my husband and children.

If you act like you're sleeping, my mommy will leave you alone.

Finally

Someone stepped on the scale this morning and found out that she has lost about 4 lbs this week.

Someone hasn't lost 4 lbs in a week since the summer of 2006.

Someone hasn't seen the second number on her scale be this low since approximately 2003.

Someone is crying right now.

Someone wonders why weight is so hard to get off but so doggone easy to put on.

Someone does not think this is fair.

Someone is very very happy this morning.

What's In a Name?

Some of you may be wondering where I got the name for this here blog. The story is kind of funny and it goes something like this...

One day about a year or so ago, my husband and I were looking at our wedding pictures. In one of them, you see a fresh-faced young couple with huge grins on their faces, about ready to cut the cake. My mermaid-style wedding gown looked very flattering on my trim body, and my husband stood tall and debonair in his tux. Roger looked over at me and said, "What ever happened to those people?" I replied, "Honey, we ate those people." I then went on to laugh about how I was so much mooooooore of a woman now than I was when we wed, meaning the thirty five additional pounds I had packed on between kids and sedentary office jobs. We laughed a good bit about that and the conversation was soon forgotten.

Recently, as I looked back on that same picture, I discovered that I am more of a woman in many areas than I was back then. I would like to think that the greatest change in me hasn't been my weight gain, but my personality gain. My empathy gain. My understanding gain. My love gain. I rather hope that I am also less of a woman, less self-centered, less impatient, less judgmental. I am more in mass, but less in self-consciousness. I am more in size, but less in unforgiveness. I am less of the servant of God than I want to be, but hopefully more like Him as time goes on.

That's what I am striving for, people. To be less and more at the same time. How about for today, we examine ourselves. Are we less in areas that are important, but more in areas that are temporal and don't really mean much? How about for today, just for today, we all try to be a little more understanding, and a little less hurried? A little more giving, and a little less taking. Let's move a little more, and talk a little less. Let's be a little more kind to those in our family, and a little less accomodating to those that we don't have eternal connections with.

Go forth today and be less...and more.

You're Here! You're Really Here!

Hello? Is this thing on? Testing, one, two, three.... You can hear me? Okay, good! If everyone would just please grab your coffee or tea and find a seat, we can get started. What? What's that? The brownies are gone? I am so sorry. I was really nervous about our meeting today, so I ate one or two. Or seven. Or fourteen. Really, I am quite sorry. I promise to make more for next time. Now, please scoot over towards the middle of the rows so there will be plenty of seating for everyone. Great! Are we all comfy? Ready to go? Good!

First off, let me welcome all of you to my new blog, More of a Woman. This will be my own personal blog that will deal with life, marriage, mommyhood, and weight loss, not necessarily in that order.

Let me give you a little background...I have been married for fifteen years to my college sweetheart, Roger. We have two rugrats: Zachary, age 11, and Alison, age 2 (and boy, is she TWO! But that's fodder for other posts.) I work from home in the healthcare field. I do bookkeeping, marketing, and case review for a medical review company located in a different state. I get to travel for conferences and training several times a year, which I greatly enjoy. I am soon to be 37 (ouch. That was soooo hard to type!).

And for as long as I can remember, I have struggled with my weight. I am genetically predispositioned to have a weight problem. Women in my family? We are a rotund bunch for the most part. I have never been one of those naturally skinny women who can eat whatever and never manage to gain an ounce. (My sister in law is like that. She is also tall, beautiful, and just about the sweetest person I know. So yeah. I can't even hate her. How is that fair? ) I can walk by a bakery window and be up a pound the next day.

I began Weight Watchers in July 2006. So far on WW, I have lost about 14 lbs. Well, actually more like 18 lbs, but I am at a plateau where I keep gaining and losing the same five pounds since December 2006.

So, where am I going with all this and why do you need to know? A big focus of this blog is going to be health and weight loss. Now, I am sure after reading this for a week or two, you will see that in no way is this actually a HEALTH or WEIGHT LOSS blog as you would normally picture it. I am not a doctor, but I do play one on the Internets. I would like for this to be a place where we can all feel comfortable in our own skin, while we are trying to make that skin surround less mass. I want to focus on getting healthy, not just getting skinny. I know some very fit-looking people who are very unhealthy, and some very overweight people who are actually healthy. It is about more than the numbers on the scale.

If I can ever figure out how, I will have a place for recipes and weight loss tips and lots of other good stuff. If I can't, then those things will just be included in my postings.

And for those of you who came over from SC, you would not know this is my blog if it weren't for the pictures of my kids. I told my husband that one thing we manage to do really well is produce cute chirrens, and far be it from me to withhold said cuteness from the world. So you will get lots of that too.

I will try to post at least 3-4 times a week, but again, that is subject to work and life and other things I can't control.

Thanks for coming by and I hope you will become a regular. And speaking of regular....Today's health tip is DRINK YOUR WATER. Did you know that in one university study, one glasssof water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of dieters? Lack of water is a large contributor to daytime fatigue. Most of the time when we think we are hungry, we are actually dehydrated. The next time you are in the kitchen between meals looking for something to satisfy you, try a big glass of water first. If you are still hungry five minutes later, then get something to eat. A friend of mine who began her own weight loss consulting business told me this several years ago and I have never forgotten it: "Water is the winning ticket in the weight loss lottery." You will never lose all the weight you want without drinking water. It's just a simple fact.

So instead of fighting water, let's embrace it! Toss a couple slices of lemon and orange into your water, add a dash of Splenda, and bang! You have a citrus-y drink that you didn't have to pay $1.99 for. If water isn't your thing, try upping your intake of herbal tea. Now I love a good soda just as much as the next gal, but this week, let's all try to limit our intake of soda to just one glass or can a day. Can we do that? Just that small step will get us one step closer to our goals.

Have a great day, everyone!