Sunday Funday

by Mandy

You're probably not quite sure what this picture is. Let me clarify. This is 16 pounds of ham. It is 16 pounds that I am no longer carrying around on my body.

When I started this blog with Sandy, I'd already lost about 10 pounds. As you know, I've had a hard time staying motivated over the past few weeks, so I kept yo yo-ing back and forth between those ten pounds.

I've found my 'zone' now. With my mother finally called back to work, she's feeling more motivated. With my trip in July creeping closer, I'm feeling more motivated. I think the spring weather has been helping too. It's easier to go outside for a walk when it's bright and sunny and warm.

Last Wednesday when I got on the scale...I'd finally recovered the 10 pounds I'd originally lost. I tried to look at that as making myself a fresh slate. It was time to stop harping on the days I didn't eat well...and look ahead with optimism and strength.

I've been exercising like a fiend. Now I'm sure I didn't actually lose 4 pounds between Wed and Today. Although maybe I did...with the atrocious amount of calories I've been eating, I'm sure just cutting back on the calories did a number on my metabolism. Either way, I must say...looking down at the scale and seeing 276 instead of 280 made me so excited.

My mom and I have been talking about Easter. We've decided that each of us can pick out 2 reasonably sized treats for Easter...food or nonfood. I think it's better that way. Sometimes we'll set aside 'cheat days' once a month...and when that day comes up...we don't actually want anything but feel pressured to take advantage of the opportunity. I think that leaves us feeling conflicted and leads us to eat more. So this year....I could decide to get two small cadbury eggs, or one cadbury egg and a book, or two books.

This will be a step, I hope...in learning not to reward myself with food so much.

Thank you so much for reading this blog. Your support means the world to Sandy and I.

Happy Hump/Weigh Day!

By Mandy

It is Hump Wednesday! It's also weigh day...because I forgot to do it yesterday. This week I am down by 2 pounds! Progress is progress and I'm happy for any number as long as it doesn't have a plus sign next to it.

I wasn't perfect over the past week. On Friday I had to buy lunch. But instead of going for fatty burgers or pizza, I brought my v8 with me, along with carrot chips and turkey pepperoni...and got sushi. By and by sushi is not the best thing around, but I got the veggie roll, so the worst thing about it was the rice. And melded together with the stuff I brought from home I felt pretty good about it.

Yesterday was a bit trickier. A friend wanted to hang out, but we really didn't have any money to go anywhere or do anything. So we sat at her house and watched a few movies. Eventually dinnertime came around and we were both hungry. Her house...is not diet friendly. I didn't want to cut our day short just to go home and eat. So we ended up having grilled cheese sandwiches. Now she likes to make them with a lot of cheese and with butter spread across the top and bottom of the bread so that it browns in the pan. I told her not to use butter for mine, put a little less cheese on it...and that was pretty much the best I could do. I said no to the chips she offered me later on, and the minute I got home I tried to offset the sandwich with a nice glass of V8 and an apple.

Working your diet around your friends can sometimes be hard. You don't want to be inconvenient, and you certainly don't want to make them feel bad for not eating what you are.

All in all however, I'm feeling pretty successful.

It's Weigh Day

By Sandy

Ok - I guess all of you remember last week when I was distraught on Weigh Day.  I had gained all my weight back and just felt basically like crap!  Well - a couple things happened last week.

1 - it rained a lot, so I didn't get to exercise as much as I wanted to.

and 2 - I gave myself a break and didn't really stress out about the weight gain. 

Oh - I pretty much stuck to my plan (except for over the weekend I was kinda cheaty) but No sodas, exercised 3 times, took my vitamin, and ate well and GUESS WHAT...  I lost 6 pounds in the last week!!  The picture above is 5 lbs of fat.  And that is not me holding it (that chick is too skinny to be me).  Do I really think that I lost that much in a week??  NO!  But it just goes to show you how much your weight can fluctuate due to many factors - stress, lack of motivation, lack of encouragement, not exercising, stress eating all add up to a gain or worse they add up to going completely off your program.

I am notorious for saying "screw it, I can't do it, it's too hard, all I ever do is gain...."  And what this has done, is messed up my system to the point that my body doesn't know WHAT to do!!!  Hopefully I will get it back on track.  So for those of you who are counting (see my page at the top) I have lost 6 pounds total and it has been 4 weeks.  That is not a big weight loss - I would like to have had 8 instead of 6 but I think if I stick with it, the results will get better.  Once my body realizes that I am not going to give up.

So, tell me...How was your week???  Leave me some love and encouragement in the form of a comment.  Let me know what you are doing that works and that doesn't...