Getting this party started

I've been weeding through a lot of articles, Internet sites and of course, all your wonderful blogs, the past few days to try to find some helpful tips and tricks to get my weight loss going. I've only lost a pound and a half in about 2 ½ months, and while I have had many non-scale successes throughout the process, (i.e. I actually woke up early yesterday morning and worked out!) I'm thinking like singer, Pink, and am "ready to get this party started right now!" Yeah!

Everything I'm reading seems to say the same thing: less calories, more movement equals weight loss (anyone else saying duh here?) But what if someone is following that equation, and still isn't seeing any minus signs? Yes, I've had a few splurges over the past few months, but I've been sticking with Weight Watchers on a pretty consistent basis and working out for at least 45 minutes every day. I talked it over with my husband and mom, and through the discussions, and my Internet research, a few light bulbs went off for me as to why I may be experiencing a stall.

1. I'm stressing too much about the scale. I have to admit, when I work hard on the food and fitness plan all week, then get on the scale and don't see any difference, I get pretty down about it. And we all know stress isn't good for the body! (Read this article from WebMD about the correlation between stress and weight gain.) Combining the scale anxiety with work, having my husband traveling for a total of 6 weeks over the past few months, family health issues, etc., is probably not helping me stay too "Zen." So, first and foremost, I'm putting away the scale. It is too tempting to have it sitting right there in the bathroom when I'm headed to the shower, so its new home will be our hallway closet. I'm not going to say I won't weigh myself anymore, but at least I won't go through what feels like a weekly beating.


2. I'm not getting enough sleep. I was surprised by the findings of several studies done a few years ago that found that people who sleep two to four hours a night are 73 percent more likely to be obese than those who get seven to nine hours. Those who get five or more hours of sleep a night are 50 percent more likely to be obese than normal sleepers. Those who sleep six hours are 23 percent more likely to be obese. Makes me want to go home and take a nap! HA HA! I have always been a bit of a night owl, and I think the increased exercise has given me a lot more energy. More nights than not, I find myself wide awake past midnight, and I even when I do finally drift off, I end up waking up at 3:30 a.m. on the dot and not being able to get back to sleep for a good hour or so. Maybe a good dose of turkey or Sleepytime tea may help me get some better rest?


3. Am I drinking enough water? I keep gallons of water handy at my desk, and have several glasses while at home, but I don't really keep track of how much I'm drinking. The Mayo Clinic recommends the standard 8, 8-ounce rule, but they say number of factors (exercise, environment) can influence your target water intake. I think I'm going to have to pull out my trusty Nalgene bottle with the handy dandy ounce counter on the side for awhile to make sure I'm keeping up with my fluids!


4. I do the same exercise routine every day. While I'm starting to love the results I'm seeing (more-defined legs, flatter belly) from Jillian Michaels shred challenge and my usual walk/jog with the pooch, I do wonder if doing the same exercise routine every day is causing more harm than good. Dr. Patrika Tsai over at healthcentral.com says, "When you do the same exercises each day, your body becomes more efficient at performing them, and you may not see as much change in weight loss or muscle strengthening as you experienced when you first started. Adding new exercises will often allow you to develop parts of your body that may not already be targeted by the activities you are currently doing." That's some good advice! I do want to finish the shred, but I'm definitely going to incorporate some new workouts to my current mix. Volleyball has been on hiatus for two weeks, so I'll be glad when that starts up again. I'm also going to look into some aerobics classes (something I've been saying I'm going to do for awhile now), and do more intervals of running while out on my walks.


5. I may be eating too many carbs. On the way to work this morning, I was listening to a radio station that had a health and fitness expert on as a guest. (Ironic!) A lady phoned in to ask her about her own weight loss probs, and one of her suggestions was to not eat a lot of carbs at night. I'm going to try to keep dinners more protein-veggie strict for awhile and see what happens, and eat earlier in the evening. 9 p.m. probably isn't a good time to have a bowl of spaghetti, portion controlled or not. :)

Maybe a few modifications will get me on the road to reaching my goals. I hope anyone who is struggling as well will find this information helpful, and any other tips and tricks are much appreciated. Best of luck to all of us! :)

If you do the wine, you've got to do the time

Well, I managed to make it through Jessica's bridal shower without shoving maidzilla into a closet. :) It was a really nice party, and Jessica said she loved everything. I was so nervous about making several dishes because I'm not used to cooking for crowds, but I luckily got rave reviews on the egg and sausage and hashbrown casseroles. Whew! I sampled them myself, and I have to say they were pretty yum. If you would like the recipes, e-mail me at twopounds2@yahoo.com. (Warning: While delicious, these aren't the healthiest of dishes. Ha!) Along with pumpkin bread, sausage balls, fruit and a few Mimosas, I was stuffed!

Mimosa and punch table

Shower game gifts -- very fall appropriate!

Digging in

The happy bride-to-be -- that smile was worth all the work!

I have to say I wasn't on my best portion behavior Saturday or Sunday night. Some friends and I went out for Mexican food Saturday night, and while my tacos weren't too bad in calories, the chips and cheese I scarfed down sure were!

Sunday I did pretty good eating wise, and took Tex for an hour walk. But that night, I had a couple of glasses of wine, and WAY too many pita chips and pine nut Sabra hummus. Seriously, that hummus could lead to addiction!

So to make up for a few days of overeating, I enrolled myself in my very own boot camp today. I did 40 grueling minutes of Jillian Michaels' shred workout, and by the end of it, I was so shaky and my face was six shades of red! I was proud of myself though -- I didn't think I'd be able to get through the first 20 minutes, let alone a second round, but I just pushed through it. I followed that with two miles of walking with Tex. I almost shortened that workout too because my legs were so tired, but in true boot camp style, I wouldn't let myself take the easy way out. Hopefully, my efforts today erased some of the mistakes of yesterday. :) I'm learning through this process that I'm not always going to be perfect, and that's ok. There will be times that I eat too much or skip a workout, but I can't dwell on it and get down on myself. I just have to move forward and concentrate on making good choices for the day ahead.

Meg Makes It on Monday

I actually made tonight's "Meg Makes It on Monday" meal last night for dinner, but it was so good, I still wanted to share it. My coworker, Janet, gave me a recipe for chicken enchilada soup awhile back, and it has become one of my favorite cool-weather suppers. (And man, was it chilly last night! Brr...) I altered it a bit and used ground turkey instead of chicken, but I think any protein (i.e. ground beef, tofu) would work in this dish:

4 oz. light Velveeta cheese
10 oz. chopped chicken breast (boiled without skin)
1 medium onion (chopped)
2 cans niblett corn (undrained)
2 cans pinto beans (I used organic beans)
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 can Rotel
1 tsp garlic pepper

Mix all ingredients except cheese. Simmer 30 minutes. Stir in cheese and let simmer until cheese melts.

The recipe says 1 cup equals about two Weight Watcher points.

Enjoy!!

I'm sad to see my three-day weekend come to a close. :( But it's always nice to have a short work week. Hope everyone has a great one!

Casseroles and cider and maidzilla...oh my!

Happy Thursday, all! I don't know about you, but I am ready for the weekend...I think. :) I'm pumped that this is a three-day break from work (thanks, Columbus!), but I am a bit apprehensive about my Saturday morning plans. My friend, Jessica, whom I've mentioned many times on this blog, is having a fall-themed bridal brunch that I happily agreed to help with. I mean, what are friends (and bridesmaids) for? I have to give her some major credit -- she has been one easy going bride-to-be since the day Michael put that gorgeous ring on her finger:

ROCKin! Jessica's bling is on the right.

Now Jessica's maid of honor being easy going? Not so much. From day one of planning this shindig, this woman, who I am sure is a perfectly sane, nice person under normal circumstances, has been soooo bossy and blunt, Lori (our friend and fellow bridesmaid that I also talk about all the time) and I have dubbed her "Maidzilla." Some of her bizarre antics include:

• Nixing every food, drink and decoration Lori and I have suggested
• Sending out invitations to everyone BUT me (accident? I think not!) Also, Jessica said no pink. Guess what color the invite was. :)
  
• Ordering me to pick up her bridesmaid dress without so much as a please or thank you (where's Emily Post when you need her?)
• Having people RSVP to her, yet not writing any of the names down, so we have no idea how many people to prepare for.
  
• Forbidding any games to be played (We are going to have three anyway...she just doesn't know it yet. HA HA!)
  
• Putting her nose up to free stuff (Lori's hubs works for Sara Lee and offered to hook us up with a super delicious assortment of breads) because bagels are "too continental breakfast." For a girl that hasn't paid a dime for one moursel of the food, she sure has some strong opinions about it!
  

The list could go on, however, I think you get the picture on just how impossible Ms. Maidzilla is being to poor Lori and I. But, remembering that this day is for our friend whom we must really like to put up with some breakfast B-S, I put my bad feelings aside and went grocery shopping for all the ingredients for my part of the eats and drinks: egg and sausage casserole, hashbrown casserole, hot apple cider and most important, Mimosas! Lori and I may have to down a truckload of these before going over to help set up. HA HA! I don't want to splurge too much and ruin the good week I've had, so it's going to be all about control...portion control that is! I've practiced that a lot today, starting with a PB and banana sandwich on Ezekiel bread.

This isn't a very attractive pic with the crumbly paper towel and all, but the sandwich was yum and filling...I didn't feel hungry again until lunch! Lori was kind enough to pick up Chinese for our mid-day meal, and even though I could have eaten my entire box of beef and broccoli, I kept it to a cup (only 4 WW points), with 1/2 cup steamed rice (2 points) and a cup of hot and sour soup (also 2 points). I did splurge and have two of Lori's cream cheese wontons, and yeah, they were worth every bite (I had to guesstimate on the points for these...5-6?) We kind of rushed through lunch, so I forgot to take pics, but Lori and Jessica can vouch for me that I kept my portions in check. :)

I wanted something simple and quick for dinner, so while I was shopping for shower goods, I stumbled across these in the deli section:

chicken and Swiss pinwheels -- so good!

I had four of these, along with a serving of jalapeno chips and a cup of carrots. Spicy mustard is that blob on the side.

I also had another session with Jillian...it's still hard, but I think I'm getting better! I actually looked forward to it tonight instead of dreading it. I doubt I'll say that in a few days when I start Level 3. :)

So here's what I want to hear from you about: Have you ever had to deal with a bridezilla or maidzilla? What kinds of things did they do to get you frazzled?

Body for baby

So yesterday, I said I was going to talk about the number one reason I want to lose weight. I'm sure you've all figured it out by the title of this post -- the husband and I are thinking about trying for a family early next year! While I don't have a lot of weight to lose, (23 lbs to be exact after having a discussion about a good "number" to shoot for with my nurse practitioner today...more on that in a min!) I want to make sure that I'm as fit and healthy as possible for our future baby. But until then, we still have our "starter" child:

Tex when we first got him at 8 weeks old! I am one proud mama! Ha!

Most of my life, I wasn't even sure I wanted kids. Anytime I would hear a baby whining about candy in the grocery store or banging spoons on the table in a restaurant, it convinced me a little more to scratch "be a mom" off my to-do list. But then, in 2004, my anti-maternal wall came crumbling down when my sweet niece, Kristen, was born. Elizabeth and Presley further reduced the rock to rubble when they came into the world a few years later. All of the sudden, instead of running far, far away from anything related to babies, I was shopping for Dora dolls and offering to babysit (something I never enjoyed doing in my teen years). I feel like being an aunt has been a great way to test the waters so to speak into motherhood, and after being around these precious girls, I think I'm almost ready to jump in.

It may be somewhat sooner than JD and I had originally discussed, but I found out before we got married last year that I have a cyst on my uterus, which may make it difficult for us to have kids. I've had two doctors tell me that if I want to have one child, let alone a second, we better push our family plans up on the calendar. But we both believe that we will have a child if God intends for us to, and we want to wait until we feel confident to do so. And with extra weight on, I don't feel like my body is ready for baby. But hopefully, with continued efforts in the food and fitness department, it will be soon.

As I said earlier, I talked with my nurse practitioner today about my slow weight loss. I initially spoke with her about it over the summer, before I started this little blog, and she ran several tests, took some blood, etc., to make sure everything was working A-OK. I did find out I have a Vitamin D deficiency, (taking vitamins for that now) but my thyroid and glucose levels were just grand. She asked questions about what I eat, how often I exercise, and concluded that I'm on the right track to getting to my 23-pound-gone goal. Metabolism medicine isn't an option for me, due to my history with heart palps, and I have to honestly say I was a little disappointed. Working this hard with no change on the scale has been frustrating, and having a "push" to get my weight loss moving was something I was secretly hoping for. But now that I've had time to mull it over, I'm glad I didn't leave the doctor's office with a prescription. Hard or not, this is my battle, and I've got to figure out what weapons work best to fight it. My NP advised me to do more strength training (30-45 minutes), so that will be goal #1. I already do about 10 minutes with Jillian every day, but I may have to seek out some additional workouts each week to give my muscles the optimum workout.

Any suggestions -- great DVDs, online videos, classes?

Squash happens

For tonight's installation of "Meg Makes It on Monday," I had all plans (and ingredients) to make spaghetti squash and meat sauce. I got the delicious idea from Jen over at Prior Fat Girl, and I was really looking forward to preparing a veggie I've never cooked before. I took my medium-sized squash out of its produce bag, and some kind of stinky juice got all over my hands. Not good! I found the culprit: a leaking, bruised spot smack on the bottom of the squash. The stench was so strong, I had no choice but to take it straight out to the garbage can. I'm disappointed, and I hate buying produce and one day later, discovering their hidden rottenness. I should have taken it back, but I didn't want my car to smell like a port-o-potty at a rock concert. ICK!!

So, I regretfully made something else: Italian turkey sausage links, sauteed onions and green peppers and a strawberry spinach salad.

I have to say I wasn't wild about the sausage. It tasted a bit like black licorice to me, and I am definitely not a fan of that! But the salad was tasty (and pretty):

This may look and sound like a weird combination, but I really liked all these flavors together: spinach, strawberries, mushrooms, avocado, purple onion and a drizzle of balsamic dressing. I would have taken a big plate of this over the sausage any day! I used to keep fruit far away from the bowl when it came to salads, but I'm starting to embrace it...slowly. :)

I hope to make it to the grocery store tomorrow to purchase another squash. I'd really like to taste the difference between veggie "noodles" and regular ones for spaghetti. Saving calories and Weight Watcher points here and there with yummy substitutes are tops in my book!

Another thing on tomorrow's agenda: paying my doctor a visit. I made an appointment with her to discuss my S-L-O-W weight loss over the past few months, and I hope she can help me with getting it going in the right direction. More on that, and the number 1 reason I want to get the weight off, in another post!

Well, I've procrastinated long enough...Jillian is yelling at me from the DVD player to get up and do tonight's shred workout. Have a good night, all!

Whirlwind weekend

I can't believe it is Sunday already...this weekend went by lightning fast! JD and I have had a wonderful few days together, and got so much accomplished. When I got home from work on Friday, I wanted to get my workout out of the way, so I quickly changed and completed my last day of Level 1 of Jillian Michaels shred challenge. I ended up sleeping in Friday morning (must make getting out of bed early a goal for this week), so no two workouts to make up for Thursday's day off. JD and I did take Tex out for a brisk, 2-mile walk after I got done with the shred, so I guess that could count as an extra workout. :) But I'm going to add a day somewhere so I will have a full 30 days with Ms. Michaels. I didn't take pictures of Friday's meals, but I didn't do too bad: Yogurt with toppings for breakfast; 1/2 cup chicken salad over greens and veggies for lunch; and grilled steaks, baked french fries and steamed asparagus for dinner. I did have a small piece of ice cream cake in celebration of someone's birthday at work, but it was only a few bites. (Even though I was tempted to lick the bowl. HA!)

Saturday, the husband and I slept a little longer than we intended (think 10:15!), but we still got a ton of chores done around the house after this quick but yummy breakfast:

Grilled turkey, bacon and cheese sandwich on Ezekiel bread, with lettuce and tomatoes, and a side of frozen berries. The turkey and bacon were both hormone free!

In between weeding the flower bed, doing dishes and laundry, putting the last few things in our new china cabinet and helping the husband clean the back porch, I managed to do Day 1 of Level 2 of the shred. I had a hard time keeping up with all the moves, and it is definitely more difficult than the introductory level. I mean, walking push ups?! AHHH! I took the dog out after I finished my workout, but I was so shaky and tired, we only did a mile. Hopefully it will get somewhat easier (yeah, right!) I took the husband to Outback for dinner last night (his choice), and I got some great tilapia with mushroom sauce and veggies. I was a bit too full afterwards, so I probably should have boxed up half the fish. Oh well!

Today, I had some me time and went shopping alone. My friend Jessica's bridal shower is next Saturday, so I was hoping to find a cute dress to wear to it. I didn't see anything I really liked in the dress department, but I did buy some fall-appropriate shirts that are pretty cute. And, I didn't get stuck this time. HA HA! I also got my grocery shopping done, and loaded up on some great eats for this week. I'm excited about tomorrow's "Meg Makes It on Monday" meal! :)

I'm about to do Day 2 of Level 2 of the shred -- say a prayer for me! :) Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

Walking for Teri

In an earlier post, I talked about my aunt, Teri, who was recently diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. I said I was soon going to participate in the Pink Ribbon Walk in her honor, and today was the day! Breast Cancer Awareness Month activities were in full swing when I got to the office this morning, including a vendor fair with all kinds of pamphlets and displays with helpful tips on self detection and prevention; a presentation by a well-respected oncologist; and finally, the Pink Ribbon Walk around our cluster of buildings. Speaking of pink, I've never seen so much of one color in my life! T-shirts, decorations -- even the ice cream was a shade of blush. Love it!

I had a little cup of strawberry, and it was mmm...mmm...delicious! I'm glad these treats were all the way out in the lobby, or I may have had another. :)

I have to say, despite the sugar high from the ice cream, the whole day was pretty emotional for me. I was having a hard time keeping the tears at bay during the presentation, because every time I heard the word cancer or chemo, I'd think about what Teri is going through. But taking the walk lifted my spirits, because so many of the ladies participating are breast cancer survivors...and I know Teri is going to beat this too!

Walking for a good cause -- look at all the pink tops!

Me after completing the walk -- loved these ribbon flags! Teri, you may be seeing one of these in the mail. :)

With all the breast cancer awareness activities, an almost two-hour meeting and a mountain of e-mails to return, I was deliriously tired when I got home. I haven't slept well all week, and I think it is finally catching up to me. So, even though I'm sure most people won't agree with this, I gave myself permission to take the night off. No counting points, no workouts -- just some much-needed R&R. Our china cabinet came today, so JD and I had a nice evening filling it with wedding memorabilia, trinkets and other things that were begging to be let out of dusty boxes, and then we went out to dinner. I didn't do too shabby even on my one-night strike -- broccoli and cheese soup, which I didn't finish all of, and a single trip to the salad bar.

I know I will have Jillian Michaels to deal with later, but I plan to do two workouts tomorrow to make up for it. I just have to make sure I get my buns out of bed when the alarm goes off. Hopefully one of these daily from now on will help with the sluggishness:

Anyone else taking a multivitamin?

I'm off to curl up under my extra blanket and enjoy some Zzzzs! Night!