Two Thoughts

Two new thoughts.  
With Weight Watchers, every member is allowed a certain number of points to eat per day. They figure out how many points each food item "costs" by looking at fat, carbs, fiber, and protein content. In addition to your daily point allowance, WW allows you to have 49 extra points each week to use as you choose. If you don't tap into that extra weekly amount of points, you lose them and start over with 49 new ones the following week. In other words, you can't save them up past a week. These are great if you have to go to a special occasion like a wedding, and you wanna eat all the food PLUS wedding cake, AND have a drink or two. What's a girl to do?? Use your extra weekly points!! YAY!!

First new thought (which i already knew but has been more in my face than usual): portion control. I am tracking every bite I eat.As WW says, "If you bite it, write it." I am finding that I keep using more than my daily allowance of points. Most days this is because of portion control. At least I am being honest!! When I eat a full bowl of whole grain cereal in the morning, it is tempting to write that I had one serving, but a full bowl comes out to more like 2 servings of the cereal I am eating. So I am recording the actual points that I am eating, and almost every day, I go OVER my allowable points. At least with the extra "emergency" points, I am still in the right ball park, but I would like to be able to stay closer to my daily point allowance. I could achieve this if I were more careful with portion sizes. 

Second new thought: Dirty Dishes. Yes, people who prepare actual meals have a lot more dirty dishes. And a lot more trash. Stinky trash like the raw chicken skin that you peel off before you cook the chicken. Anyway, I have started to settle into my new house and I am also starting to develop routines for keeping it half decent. I am trying to wash the dishes each night and/or load them in the dishwasher. I don't run the dishwasher every night cuz I don't dirty enough dishes for that, but I do have to wash things by hand almost every night. I am not perfect by ANY means, and there are nights when I just ignore the dirty dishes, but this can lead to problems! For example, who wants to cook a meal in a dirty kitchen? Waking up the next day and eating a healthy breakfast is not NEARLY as much fun when the kitchen is a mess! I am just saying that whether you thought about it or not, ROUTINES are important to a healthy lifestyle. We have to make sure we put the trash out on the right day for pick-up, and keep our kitchens clean, and keep our fridges stocked with healthy foods (which means going to the store on a regular basis). Do you see how all of this snowballs?? Routines are important. 
If you need help with things like ROUTINES, here is a website that I found to be super-duper valuable in my life. I hope it can help you too!
Flylady.net

Delicious summer salad recipe

1/2 small uncooked red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 TBSP olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (i used ground cumin)
15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 medium avocado, diced
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
8 cups lettuce leaves, roughly torn
12 baked, low-fat tortilla chips, coarsely crumbled

Instructions

• In a large bowl, combine onion, lime juice, oil, salt and cumin seeds; let stand 10 minutes, tossing occasionally, until onion starts to wilt. Add beans, avocado and tomatoes to bowl; gently toss to mix and coat.
  
• Line each of 4 plates with 2 cups of lettuce; top each with 3/4 cup of bean salad and 3 crumbled chips. Yields 1 salad per serving. 

Above is the Weight Watchers recipe for Cumin-Lime Black Bean and Avocado Salad. I had this for dinner tonight. It was yummy!! One serving is 7 points.  Unfortunately, sort of, I had two servings. Also, while preparing it (no cooking involved), it looked and smelled so wonderful that I forgot all about the chips!!! I recommend eating LOTS of lettuce with it, or maybe having it for a light lunch because it wasn't very filling. Another possibility is to put meat on it. Mmmmm... I have some shrimp in the freezer!!! It would turn out like ceviche. Yum.

This video shows exactly how I diced my avocado. So smart!!!
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYx6lO0suuU

Hello!
Life keeps getting in the way of my weight loss attempts. This past week I had the stress of the end of the school year hanging over my head, PLUS a bad sinus and respiratory infection. The latter was probably brought on by the former. Anyway, i made it through a VERY tough week, but didn't really pay attention to Weight Watchers, and I failed to attend a WW meeting!! 
I say all this because LIFE HAPPENS. There will always be something stressful, or exciting, or sad, or WHATEVER- going on in my life. It is time to stop making excuses. Tomorrow morning I am going to make a WW friendly menu, then go to the grocery store. I am going to record every single point that I eat this week if it KILLS me!!! Well, OK, I might not do a perfect job, but it will be a start. ANOTHER start. 
I just saw a cute quote on Facebook that goes something like this:
"I am not a failure. I am just very successful at figuring out what DOESN'T work."
I know WW works for a lot of people, but not if they don't follow the plan!!!   

Speaking of start overs, i have updated my Weight Loss Ticker at the top of this post. Go to Tickerfactory.com if you are interested in making your own ticker. They have tons of different designs and styles of tickers. You can track weight loss by your actual weight, or by how many pounds you need to lose (like I did), or you can track financial goals, pregnancies, count down to events like weddings, etc. etc.
Hugs for now,
Maria

Wow! So here I am. I look back on the last 9 months and can't believe how far I have come. I have been through a LOT of stress and sadness. I think I am almost done with the "crazy time" that comes after a divorce. I have moved into my own home and am paying my bills all by myself. I wake up everyday and put on my big girl pants. Life is completely different for me now than it was last year at this time. 

It's time to start taking care of myself again. I am back on track to continue my weight loss journey. I am hopeful and optimistic. 

This week I joined Weight Watchers with my friend, Hailey.  At my first meeting, I weighed in at 102 pounds overweight. This is not gonna be easy, but I am determined to be healthier!!! The WW leader asked us why we signed up for WW. These are some of my reasons:
1. After losing 40 pounds on the last plan, my knees stopped hurting when I went up and down stairs. I want my knees to stop hurting again!!
2. I want to fit into my "skinny" clothes again.
3. I want to wear a size that is not PLUS or have a W after it, like 20W. Ugh.
4. I want to have lots of energy to work in my yard and to keep my house clean.
5. I want to avoid cancer and diabetes and heart disease.
6. I want to volunteer to babysit my grandchildren and then be able to play with them! And live long enough to watch them grow up. 
7. I want to be comfortable with my appearance and have a healthy self-esteem again.
8. I want to have lots of energy for my vocation and life's purpose, which is to educate and love children.
9. I don't want to be embarrassed when I board an airplane.
10. I want to hike all over the beautiful state of Colorado and climb fourteeners. 

There are sooo many more reasons, but these are the biggies. What are YOUR reasons for getting healthy? Some meditation on this question can be very motivating. 

Maria