Twas the Night before weigh in

Twas the night before weigh in , when all through the house
Not a morsel was eaten, not even by a mouse
The scale was sitting on the bathroom floor with care,
In hopes that a smaller number soon would be there.

The food was nestled, all snug in the fridge,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in my head
And Scott with his snack and me with my carrot
Had just settled our brains to watch a funny show.

When down in the tv room there arose such a clatter,
Scott sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.
Away to the kitchen he flew like a flash,
Turned on the light and threw open the fridge.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen food
Gave the lustre of mid-day to cakes and cookies below.
When, what to his wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature cake, and eight tiny cookies.

With a sneaky eater, so lively and quick,
He knew in a moment it must be me.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now cookies! now, cakes! now, chips and Ice Cream!
On, soda! On, pizza! on, on chocolate and candy!
To the back of the fridge! to the top of the cupboard!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the cupboards the coursers they flew,
With the plate full of fat grams, and calories too.

And then, in a twinkling, he heard downstairs
The crinkling and pawing of each little wrapper.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the staircase my husband came with a bound.

He was dressed all in pjs, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with crumbs and loot.
A bundle of snack food I had flung on MY back,
And i looked like a baker, just opening his pack.

The cakes how they twinkled! the icing how merry!
The fondant roses and the candied cherry!
The boxes of chocolate tied up with a bow,
And the icing sugar was as white as the snow.

The twinkie i held tightly in my teeth,
And the smell it encircled my head like a wreath.
He told me if I ate I would have a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when I laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He said "do you want to be chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,"
And I laughed when I heard him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And took all my treats, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the staircase he rose!

He sprang to the fridge, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he walked out of sight,
"Happy weigh in to all and to all, and to all a good-night!"

Happy Goodbye

Today was the first of what I hope will be many Happy Goodbyes. I got up and got myself ready for work, however about an hour or so later I realized that the dress pants that I was wearing did not fit properly. The good news, they were too big.

Now I like a bit of room in my clothing and I am not a fan of items that cling, however these pants are now loose in the waist, bottom and legs, The extra room made them hang lower on me so they were actually getting wet when I was walking outside.

I have made a decision that I will not be purchasing any new clothes until I reach my 10% target which is fine because I have many items in many sizes to get me through until then.

These particular pair of pants however are going to be retired. I have made a commitment that I am not going to hang on to the clothing that is too big for me, I don't want that crutch in the house allowing me to go back to the way that things were.

While I am never one to want to go give up clothing I am definitely happy for this goodbye.

Today was crazy, I was running out the door this am and could only grab fruit for breakfast. I felt that this had a negative impact on my day and I was starving by the time that I popped into the grocery store at 4:30pm. I realized that I definitely need to store more granola bars and almonds in my bag for times like this. I also want to pre portion some protein powder for situations like this so if necessary I can just buy a single serving of milk and make a protein shake.

A friend has decided to join WW tonight so I am going to go with her to the meeting. I will continue my at work meetings, but I like the idea of some extra support mid week and having someone else following the program can only be a good thing.

You don't have to love the game to eat the food.

So today is Superbowl Sunday.
While I am definitely not the biggest football fan out there, I do find myself getting into football mode as the game approaches. More than anything this mode usually has something to do with food.

This presented as a particular challenge this year with our determination to eat as clean and as healthy as possible. So this begs the question, How do you make healthy Superbowl Food. Some of the obvious foods were out such as fried wings, chips and anything high fat or deep fried. Chili came to mind as a very strong possibility because there are so many variations on how to make this dish.

So the decision was to make a healthy chili following as many clean eating principles as possible. Were we successful, I think so as even the kids liked it. I can't say that I am watching the game right now, but the food certainly was good.

Dawn's Chili - makes one giant pot
2 cans no salt added whole tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes (I could not find this salt free)
1 can brown beans (rinsed off the tomato sauce)
1 can kidney beans - rinsed
1 can black beans - rinsed
1 can chick peas - rinsed
1/2 green lentils (partially cooked)
1/2 cup diced onion
diced bell peppers (I used red and yellow)
1 package sliced mushrooms
1 can no salt added corn
1/2 pound steamed ground beef
1/2 pound steamed ground chicken
2 packages chili seasoning (this was not clean, but I felt it was needed)

All Good Things Must Come To An End

I woke up this morning with a startling realization. Yesterday was the first time since January 1, that I did not write a daily blog.

I had thought about writing earlier in the day, but decided that I would wait. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and we got home later than expected.

Last night my husband and I celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary. Now technically our anniversary is in early January, but the proximity to the holidays as well as our desire to get centred in our eating habits led us to the decision to wait a bit before going out.

It is interesting to think that I am (being only 30) am at a place in my life where I have been in a relationship where I have been married for 8 years and with this person for almost 11 years. I think that it is the strength and comfort of this relationship that is helping me on this journey. A person whom you have only started dating is not going to ask you what your food choices are for the day and they are definitely not going to ask you if you lost any weight this week. So Happy Belated Anniversary to my Husband who I love and who I appreciate for his help in support in all areas of our lives, but especially for his support of my journey. He has decided to be a part of this journey as well and to date has last 13lbs. Together we will become the Shrinking Mommy and Daddy.

So my best laid plans on Friday night fell short of what I was hoping for, however the additional calories came from vodka and not from food. With another evening out planned for Saturday I needed to bring a bit more focus to make sure that the weekend would not be a write off.

I started my being very aware of my choices through out the day so that I wasn't going into dinner with the majority of my food already consumed for the day. We decided to eat at Sotiris, a Greek Restaurant. I ordered water to drink ate my salad and brought home a little more than half of my entree. I definitely felt that good choices were made and I consider my first "date night" on this journey to be a success.

Depending on how the day goes I may end up writing again tonight to keep up with my attempts at daily posts, but we will wait to see how the day goes and if I have anything to write about.

The Social butterfly

The Month of January was a very quiet month for me in the sense that following the rush of the holidays we had very few social engagements planned for the month.

This led to a nice easy entry for me into my weight loss journey because I did not have the added stress of managing social situations and food. Most of my meals have been made at home and my exposure to outside food, especially to snacks has been fairly limited.

Tonight I am going to my first social outing since starting this journey. The good news is that it is not a meal, but rather an after dinner party. The bad news is that I am sure there will be food there, you know the type of food, it is placed in trays on tables within your reach and taunts you the entire time you are sitting there challenging the commitments and promises that you made not to eat it before you left. There are usually a few veggies, but also deserts or other equally high fat options.

Do I have strategies for tonight? Of course, I always go in with a plan, I’m just not sure yet what it is going to be so whether or not my plan is successful or not is yet to be determined, but trust me there will be a plan.

I am excited about going out tonight because social outings are a part of my life and the sooner that I learn to fit them into my weight loss journey the better equipped I will be to handle them in the future. The other positive part of this is that I am a social person and I enjoy spending time with friends so having opportunities to see friends and spend time with them helps to put me in a positive frame of mind and the more positive that I feel, the better my decisions are.

The other positive element is that this is the only planned social outing I have this weekend so whatever choices that I make tonight will be limited to tonight. I will not hate myself in the morning and I will have enjoyed the time with friends. I may also find myself on the bike for the remainder of the weekend if things go really bad.

Whatever Keeps You Going

Today I needed some motivation. Despite having a weight loss at the scale today, the remainder of the day was a challenge. I thin that it stemmed from feeling as those I should have seen more of a loss at the scale after following my programs really well and exercising all week. The loss was .4lbs which brings my Month one total to 9.7lbs.


Since the weigh in I have been toying with the idea of forgoing points for the week and just focusing on my clean foods. There is an option with WW to forgo points and restrict the type of foods that you are eating and this closely resembles the clean eating principles.


I actually think that counting points may have caused me to eat more than I was eating previous weeks, but I can't be sure.


So in my quest for motivation I went visiting. My visit was not to a person, but to a store. I went to visit the regular size clothing. Currently and for about the last 10 years I have worn mostly plus size clothing with the occasional XL. Today I went to visit the S, M, and L clothing that had just arrived in the various spring sizes and colours. I held up some of the items to their XXL counterparts to really look at the difference. After I went to the plus size section and noticed how uniform and boring the clothing was compared to the rest of the store. Before I left I also went to visit the bathing suit section. Surprisingly this did not cause me to have an anxiety attack or become depressed, but rather gave me clarity and focus on what my goal really looks like.


This experience helped me to put my weight loss into perspective. Today was mentally and emotionally rough, I felt that I was putting more effort in than I was getting out in results. This resulted with me struggling with my food choices for the rest of the day. I made it through lunch, but did allow myself to make a not so great choice at dinner. I felt that I managed this ok as I ensured that I ate the smallest portion of the food that I chose and kept it within my points range for the day. 


I have realized that as long as I continue to travel down the road of weight loss it is ok that some weeks I might travel slower than others, but as long I as I am continuing to follow the road I will get there. It also helped me to think that it is ok if I run out of gas, need to stop and ask for directions or stop for a scenic detour (snack) as long as I get back on the road.


Ok, I am done with the metaphors for today. I am very excited, there is a new Grey's Anatomy on tonight so I am going to treat myself to a night off after a 12 hour day at work.

Goals

I have been watching way too many weight loss reality shows lately and I think that this has skewed my expectations around weight loss. After some self talk and inner contemplation I think I am good and have realistic expectations about my weight loss. I thought that to keep control on those reasonable expectations I should set some goals for myself. The rules for my goal setting is that they need to be obtainable, but not set so low that it allows me to slack off.

I know that I would love to set a goal that would see me wearing a bikini on my next vacation, but I know that setting this goal is only setting me up for failure and honestly even when I loose the weight I don't know that I want to or that others would want me in a bikini so we are just going to put that on hold for a while.

So what are realistic goals. I previously talked about my formal red dress that I wore on my honeymoon. At 3 sizes smaller than what I currently wear, this could be obtainable by August.

For me my first big goal is to get below the lowest weight that I have been since having kids. For me that will break the cycle of yo-yo dieting and bring me to a new frontier of sizes that I have not seen in the last 7-8 years. This will also get me to a point that puts me at wearing the smallest size of clothing that I own in any variety and really motivate me to get to the next level.

So that goal is currently about 25lbs away.

I don't know exactly what my weight was when this photo was taken, but I do remember looking back at these pictures and not being embarrassed looking at them. This seems silly to me now as I was still clearly about 75lbs overweight, but looking at those photos remind me of a small period of time when I was successful at weight loss. Unfortunately that loss was the result of a pregnancy where I was very sick and only gained 10lbs and a period of nursing that helped me keep that weight off. Once I returned to work and stop nursing the weight slowly crept back on. This time my weight loss is true, it is due to lifestyle changes and exercise and not because I was sick to my stomach for 9 months and had a baby pressing on my stomach keeping me from over eating.

This time I will know how to handle stress and challenge and I will meet my goals.

Time Machine

I was watching a new series on TV last night called Heavy. The premise of the show is that every week they take two morbidly obese people and send them to a program for a month to learn how to eat and exercise. Then the show follows them for a total of 6 months to document their weight loss.


As a viewer the nice thing about this show is that it shows you a person's transformation in a condensed 60 minute framework. A person goes from obese to fit in a mere 60 minutes. I know that for those individuals those 6 months felt like forever as they went through the journey, but as a viewer it is easy to become frustrated watching someone shed pounds so quickly on tv. Sometimes I just want a time machine so that I can jump ahead 6 or 12 months just for a quick glimpse to keep me motivated.


I am so proud of the success that I have experienced so far, but day to day it can be hard to remain motivated as it takes a while before your clothing feels dramatically different or you reap the benefits of increased health and fitness. When I look in the mirror I see the same silhouette that I saw last month and it is easy to think that it will always be like this.


I know one day I will look back at my weight loss experience and I do will be able to see in over a 60 minute timespan, but day to day the challenge is to keep faith that this elusive day will come and that it is important to just keep going forward.


When I take a minute to really look at that reflection in the mirror I do see changes. I see a thinner face and pants that hang a bit looser around the thigh. I also feel room in my waist band. I feel stronger after a work out and I feel proud of myself each day when I reflect on the past 24 hours. It can be easy to be lost in the silhouette, but I do have to stop and remember that a silhouette does not show the details, and the details are important.

2 678 400 Seconds later

Today marks the completion of the first month of the Incredible Shrinking Mommy. 31 days or 777 hours, or 44 640 minutes or 2 678 400 seconds.


As I look back at the last 31 days I feel one emotion, pride. I am proud of myself for sticking to my plan, I'm proud of how I have managed temptation, I am proud of how I have managed challenges and I am even proud of when I have gave into temptation because I did it with control and I did it while in control.


I have made a commitment to eating healthy and I am supplementing that commitment by following the WW Points Plus plan. I am committed to moving my body and while weeks have been better than others I have not gone a week without exercise.


I have seen consistent weight loss on the scale and I have not let that scale determine my success on this diet. There have been days when I have been excited and days when I have felt increasing frustration, but there have not been days when I have felt like giving up. I have also achieved another goal in that I have not weighed myself in 72 hours. I am hoping that I have kicked the habit of the daily weigh in, but if I slip up I know it will be ok.


I love everything about this process. I love how I feel when I know I have had a good food day and when I have worked hard during a workout. I especially love hearing that I have inspired others and that people enjoy coming to this blog day after day to read what I have to write.


Today was the start of our fitness challenge which is a new challenge for me. Today was an excellent start. I have worked out a total of 2 hours and 10 minutes and I have plans to do another 50 minutes on the bike. I find myself prioritizing my day around getting in a healthy lunch and working out at the gym.


I bring my lunch far more than I eat out and when I eat out I make healthy informed choices.


I am 9 days back into giving up diet coke I don't find myself craving the foods that I used to.


The month has been life changing. Thank you to everyone who has followed this month with me, The Year of the Shrinking Mommy is here to stay.

Let the Competition Begin

I've been struggling a bit today in deciding what to write about. It has been a pretty regular weekend so that is good for my routine, however makes for pretty boring writing.

On an exciting note I now have a piece of fitness equipment in my home. Thanks to my mom who purchased a new machine for her house, I now have a recumbent bicycle. I made good use of it today riding for a total of 90 minutes.

This is impeccable timing as the month long fitness challenge starts tomorrow at my office. The month long fitness challenge is where groups of 6 compete to see who can log the most exercise minutes. This challenge for a sore point for me last year where I was averaging 1-2 hours of exercise a day and failed to loose any weight. This year having gotten into a good pattern with my eating I feel confident that this competitive push will help boost my weight loss efforts.

My goal for the month is to attend the gym at work 4 days a week and to ride the bike whenever I can in the evenings. I don't care if I win, for me it is not about, it is about taking my routine to the next level and starting to change the shape of my body.

As if the stakes were already high enough

Today we booked our next family vacation.
I am extremely excited even though it is 209 days away.

I am excited for two reasons. The first is obvious. In 209 days I get to go away on vacation. The second reason is that I am hoping that this vacation will be very different from those of years past.

We enjoy to vacation as a family, however I have previously limited the type of vacation to something that focues on the kids rather than hanging out at the beach or pool. Some may think that this is because I am such a good mom, but the truth is that I have sought vacations that limit the amount of time that I spend in a bathing suit.

This year however I plan to make use of every pool, beach, hot tub and ocean that I come across.
I will lay outside and read a book laying on my lounge chair instead of hiding in my cabin.

I will not make my husband seek approval for every picture that he takes and I will hate everyone else at the pool and beach who is smaller than me.

So the stakes are raised, I am bathing suit bound in 209 days and I will be ready. I may not be at my perfect weight by that time and I may still not love my body, but I will be proud of the progress that I have made and I will not hide in the shade.

I have a dress packed away in a closet that I wore 8 1/2 years ago when my husband and I cruised for our honeymoon. I wore that dress during the formal night. I would love to pull out that dress and bring it with me for our trip. Even better I would love to pull out that dress and it be too big and then have to go out and buy a new dress, but lets not get ahead of myself . . . one day at at time.

I am off to the grocery store to pick up some more fresh fruit and vegetables. I am also going to purchase some protein powder as I enjoyed the breakfast smoothie that I made earlier this week.

Damn those Golden Arches

I sent my husband this as a text earlier today. His response "There of all places". I guess we all know how much faith he has in me. I replied to him and explained that no I did not eat there, but that it was the title of today's blog. He quickly apologized.

I was out of the office today at lunch time running an errand when I found myself in Walmart very very hungry. I knew that I would be getting hungry b/c breakfast was smaller than it should have been and I did not stop for a snack. I actually chose to leave the office to avoid the cake that was about to be served in my department.

So there I am in Walmart with my tummy rumbling and I look over and see the conveniently situations McDonalds only 30 feet from where I stood.

I will be honest, I quickly started to run through various rationalizations and points calculations trying to figure out how I could get away with eating there. I also need to clarify that this was a Walmart McDonalds where they do not serve Grilled Chicken or salads or anything that is remotely healthy or clean. I then took a moment to think about how I would feel if I ate there. Lets face it for the first 3 mintues I would feel really good as instant gratification took over and I ate the salty fries, but I forced myself to look past those 3 minutes and to think about how I would feel 5, 7, 15 minutes later and the how I would feel tonight and at next weeks weigh in. It was in that quick glance into the future I realized that there was nothing on that menu that would enough to make me want to go through those feelings.

I left Walmart still hungry with the task of now having to find something healthy to eat before my willpower took an all time low and forced me to drive to the other McDonalds located conveniently right across the street.

My will power prevailed and I stopped at the Swiss Chalet drive through for chicken and a salad. This was all good until I started to look up the nutritional information and learned that my Balsamic dressing had 22grams a fat. Unfortunately it was already on my salad. Now I know that I paid money for the salad, but no amount of money was going to make me eat 22 grams of fat in a salad. The chicken, however was delicious.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Yes you can hate others for their success

Today, like all weigh in days, was a tough day for me.
The anxiety and stress starts first thing in the morning knowing that my week's efforts will be measured (literally) by one moment on the scale.


Weigh in preparation includes many factors including: deciding what to wear because clothes can weigh a lot, deciding what to eat, how much water to drink and even what jewelry to wear. All of this to maximize that number which flashes for ohhhhhh about a second.


I still have a hard time believing that I allow so much of my success on one second of my week, but week to week it is still the best measure I have. I know all of the other non scale ways to measure my success, but lets be honest week to week my clothes don't feel different so while hopefully that will become a measure of my over all success week to week I am stuck with the scale.


So now to explain my title. I was very happy with my weigh loss for the week. 1.8lbs for a total of 9.2lbs over 3 weeks. I was estatic, until it came to the sharing portion of the WW meeting and I learned that other, had lost 4, 5, 6, even 7lbs. All of a sudden what was elation 5 minutes early felt like failure.


Now I know rationally that the first week is make up of some water weight and that I lost 5lbs my first week and that everyone is different, but blah blah blah, I still hated them for that moment. 


I'm over it now, I know that in week 3 my 1.8lbs loss is good and that it is a part of my journey to both larger and lasting weight loss, but sometimes jealously does rear its ugly head and sometimes it is ok to hate others for their success for just a moment. 

Motivation

For the fist time since I started this journey I am not feeling particularly motivated. Today is pretty normal, nothing major has happened, but my motivation and excitement about this process is at an all time low. I was not even excited to come home and write my blog, probably because I knew that I have to confess to my low level of motivation.

This fortunately has not stopped me from following through on things such as eating clean/ww and exercising, I have just found that it took more effort to accomplish these things. On a positive note I carelessly grabbed cream for my coffee today instead of milk and when I realized what I did I dumped it and started again rather than just drinking it, also when I realized that I had limited time to eat lunch with nothing I packed I ate my emergency food instead of driving to the nearest drive through. (My emergency food is natural peanut butter, honey and a loaf of whole grain bread. I also had a banana on hand). This is a positive sign that all is not lost.

It has been a pretty busy 3 weeks and so today's mood may just be a reflection of the impact of the last couple of weeks rather than an reflection of my commitment to my journey. I may just be hitting a motivational plateau, one can not be chipper forever.

I do wish that every day was easy and that every day my motivation would carry me through the day without a second thought, but reality is that life is not like that and that makes today as much of a learning experience as changing a behavior or success on the scale. Handling days like today without going backwards or falling off the wagon is going to be what gets me to my goal and keeps me from stopping before I get there.

Today I ate right and I exercised even though I really didn't want to do either. Today is a win. Winning today is going to be what helps put me back into a mind frame where I am going to want to do both tomorrow.

Before you meet your prince you have to kiss a few frogs.

After 25 days of eating clean and a week of following WW I was starting to become a bit worried at falling to a rut.


As my pictures have shown my evening meals have primarily focused around chicken and some fish. I have not yet started to experiment with other sources of protein, the weeknights are to busy for experiments so I am vowing to try something different this weekend.


Today I entered the grocery store determined to walk out with something that we had never eaten before. Last night I found a Fennel recipe in the Clean Eating Magazine so that sounded like a good start.


With fresh fennel in my cart I headed to the meat department to explore my options. I was happy to see that chicken breasts were on sale, but I couldn’t handle chicken again, so I put a package in my cart for a later date and kept going.


I stopped at the fresh fish counter. Now my experience with fresh fish has been limited to purchasing single portions of salmon, but I really wanted to try something different than the package frozen fish that I have been buying.


I eyed some seasoned Tilapia, California spice and Maple BBQ with Parsley. So while Tilapia is not a new experience for us, the freshness of the fish and the seasoning gave it a new spin.


I would love to tell you that I went home and cooked the best meal I have ever eaten, but that would be a lie. The fennel which was boiled and then roasted with Parmesan cheese was good, but not great. The tilapia was a bit spicy which is good my metabolism, but my taste buds were not a fan. The meal in total with 3 pieces of multi grain fresh bread and margarine was 8 points.


So what have I learned from this experience? I have learned that they can’t all be winners, but I am not going to find new foods that I like without going through a few duds first, a concept very similar to dating.


The fennel will get date #2, but I think that this particular Tilapia and I are probably better off just wishing each other a nice life.


On a positive note, I made it back to the gym today after a 7 day hiatus (unfortunately last weeks craziness led me to skip the gym) and I resisted the diet coke temptation at Subway when I grabbed lunch.


I’m still amazed every day when I am stopped in the hall or I get an email from someone telling me that they read the blog. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.


Another friend helped me out today by making sure that I had a healthy snack before heading out on the road, thank you Sue. I really do appreciate the support everyone.

I really want this, Trust me I am as surprised as you are.

I realization came over me today as I walked into the kitchen preparing to make dinner. I did a few things automatically:

• I turned on the kettle to make a cup of decaf herbal tea.
• I grabbed a single piece of whole grain bread to keep my hunger in check as I made dinner
• I pulled out veggies and lean meat to get dinner prepared.

A thought came over me as I finished doing these. I think these are new habits, I came in and started to do these things without thinking because I do them every night. Wow, that is a habit.

I have had a few conversations with friends over the last week and I am actually surprised how many times this same conversation came up. If you are one of the people who I had this conversation with, my apologies in advance and I promise I will not name you.

Anyways the conversation went the same way without fail no matter who it was I was talking to. They began telling me all the reasons why they can not loose weight or be healthy. The reasons were the same reasons I have given since the beginning of time, or at least the last 10 years. They included, but are not limited to: no time, work too late, too many other commitments, other members of the household won't eat that way.

I listened supportively to each of these friends and realized that I could make my own list of reasons too. The difference was that I didn't want to. For me right now the most important thing is continuing on this journey and loosing weight and no matter what comes up this remains front and centre.

That does not me that things are not going to challenge me and that I am not going to give into temptation every once and a while, but I will do it consciously with my ultimate goal in mind.

Last week I stayed on course despite being awake two nights in a row all night and working late the next two nights. Those are typically my diet pit falls and I managed them with well without going off my program.

To me that means, I must really want this.

Today's Meals:

Breakfast - plain oatmeal sweetened with a tsp maple syrup, tbsp slivered almonds, 2/3 cup blueberries - 5 points

Lunch - left over chicken breast from last night, carrots, orange bell pepper, Preventia cookies and a clementine. 10 points with cookies

Dinner - pork loin chop with left over red pepper sauce, asparagus cooked with garlic, baked sweet potato fries. 9 points

The Morning After

I had a one night stand . . .  with food.
I thought that I knew what I was getting into. I had made the decision that last night was going to be about pleasure (from food). I planned, I researched nutritional information, I budgeted, but what I did not anticipate how I would feel the next morning.

It all started with a movie. A simple movie, however watching a movie for me is both a social experience and a behavioral activity. I am a creature of habit and as I discussed yesterday this habit included popcorn and diet coke.

So movie night arrived and I felt prepared. I had budgeted my points to allow me to eat a small popcorn with butter. I'm not going to tell you how many points b/c it is a little embarrassing, (you can google movie popcorn nutritional information for yourself) but I was proud of myself.

I did exactly what I had planned to do which were to choose foods that I know are not long term relationship material and who only wanted to give me immediate gratification. The problem was that I had built this up in my mind to be far more than the experience was.

After 21 days of no pop (with the exception of two glasses) it tasted much sweeter than I remembered and I did not like the flavour in any way that resembled how I used to crave it.

The popcorn tasted good, I did not finish the small container which is a change from eating large size popcorn's on my own.

At the end of the night I still felt satisfied with my choices even if the fantasy had been more than reality. It was not until a bit later when the feelings of instant gratification wore off that I saw my one night stand in the harsh light of "The Morning After". No longer did it appear seem as appealing as the night before. The sweet taste of the diet coke had left an after taste in my mouth and the buttery popcorn felt heavy and thick. I don't think that I regret this decision because I think this experience has helped me to focus on the characteristics of foods that I want to build a relationship with, foods I actually want to see the next morning.

So does that mean no more one night stands for me, I don't know. I'm not sure what I am going to do the next time bad for me food calls my name, but I can say for sure that I will definitely remember how I felt the morning after.

Some photo's from yesterday
Lunch was pasta with vegetables, Dinner was chicken with red pepper sauce, quinoa and roasted red peppers.

Choices

We make choices every minute of every day. Some are good, some are bad. At the end of the day we have to live with our choices and the consequences of them.

I made a choice last night when I purchased the baked potato chips at the store and I made another choice when I had them as a snack last night. I can live with this choice b/c they have been accounted for in terms of their point value and they were the cleanest version of potato chips I could find without going to a health food store.

Today presents another set of choices, but to fully explain I need to back up to last night. My dear husband has been unhappy with my recent decisions involving diet coke and baked potato chips. He feels that the best way and only way for us to be successful is to completely embrace clean eating and banish everything else from our diet. I do feel that he has made his own rationalizations in the last couple of weeks including full fat cheddar on a certain breakfast sandwich, but I am not going to split hairs.

Dear Husband went to the movies last night armed with a bottle of water and a snack bag of almonds. What he admitted to me last night was a bit surprising when he acknowledged that he ordered both popcorn with margarine and coke at the movies. Given the ribbing he has been giving me I promptly returned the serve with my own comments about white poison and fake fat, trust me he got the point.

Now fast forward to today. I have plans to go to the movies tonight. I have been worrying about this for the last 24 hours because I love going to the movies and I have a routine and it involves diet coke and popcorn. I will be completely honest I don't want to go to the movie tonight and not order it, because as I look around and watch everyone eat it I will be struggling to maintain my will power which will stop me from enjoying the experience and the movie.

My solution, online research to determine the nutritional information for movie theatre popcorn with and without butter and track it immediately into my points so that I can plan my day around this event. (Diet coke is a 0 point drink so there is no WW issues with this only CE issues) This is Weight Watchers 101 and a strong principle of the program which suggest that deprivation leads to over eating. This felt to me like the perfect solution and made me feel comfortable with my choice and my decision.

So, what's the problem?

The problem is that in discussion with DH I have learned that he does not fully support my decision to incorporate WW principles because he feels I am using them as a crutch to stray from clean eating. (Those weren't his exact words, but the message was there and funny I am pretty sure I blogged about this a few days ago). He feels that while he did have coke last night, I have already had diet coke this week and I should not be ordering it or the popcorn tonight.

I am now at a crossroads. I need to figure out if I can follow both the principles of CE and WW and when they come into conflict which plan should win out?

I don't have any answers right now, but I have 8 1/2 hours before I leave for the movies so I guess I better work on figuring it out.

Oh and as I write this the blog has reached 2000 page views. Thank you to everyone

Today's Breakfast
Sorry it is not very clear
2 eggs and 2 egg whites with spinach, red pepper and mushrooms topped with an 1/8 cup of part skim mozzarella cheese. Total - 6 points

CE and WW - Headed for Divorce or Happily Ever After

Today 20 days into my Clean Eating Diet I married the program to Weight Watchers. The decision to do this did not come lightly. I have really enjoyed the clean eating plan and feel that I am doing well, but I have never been one to follow a meal plan and I have found that by just following the Clean Eating principles and not the actual meal plans I leave myself vulnerable to eating too much or too little (as if) and I worry that this will impact my overall weight loss.


This is where WW comes in. With the points program I can still each clean food, but my points target tells me how much to eat.


Should be a match made in heaven, right?


Well unfortunately it is not quite that simple. First and foremost I am following a brand new weight watchers program so now after just getting the hang of eating clean I am now in the midst of figuring out a new point system and trying to determine if what I have been eating to date are good food choices to ensure that I stay within my points range.


The second problem is that I worry that WW will offer me a crutch to fall on when I want to stray from Clean Eating. It would be really easy to rationalize, well its not clean, but I'm within my points. While this may not interfere with my weight loss efforts, the decision to eat clean was about over all health and not just weight loss.


I do think that the WW at work program will offer me some benefit. It has a structured weekly weigh in and the group component is a great motivator. 


While I worry that WW will offer me a CE crutch I also feel that having that crutch will keep me motivated even when I stray. If I eat something non clean and stay on WW I am still doing a million times better than I was before and I will still loose weight.


WW will also make me accountable for portions and small food items that I have not been monitoring such as honey in my coffee. Which is 2 points by the way and definitely not worth it more than once a day. I knew I would find a motivation to cut sweetness out of my coffee once and for all.


So day is Day 20 of Clean Eating and Day 1 of Weight Watchers
I will probably still weigh myself on Wednesdays for the purposes of this blog (I am not giving up those 6lbs for anything) but I will also post my WW success as this will be my "official weight loss" for their purposes.


Tonight was another late night, but I managed to avoid the McDonald's Drive through even though I was purchasing it for others in the car. I stopped at Subway and I don't even flinch anymore when I order my sub with no cheese and no mayo.


I am definitely looking forward to the weekend and another round of clean grocery shopping

In the Face of Adversity

Today was definitely my most challenging day yet.


The day actually started last night. I was on call for work and did not end up getting to sleep. This morning I learned that the schools were closed so for that reason combined with my lack of sleep I took the day off.


That left me home all day with a 6 year old to feed and a kitchen full of food. As I have previously discussed unstructured days are not good for me.


I spent part of the morning resting to make up for my lack of sleep and while I had originally had high hopes for my afternoon off I ended up finishing some work and hanging out with my daughter.


On the plus side in order to stay on track I kept my eating rather simple for the day. For both breakfast and lunch I had a poached egg on a whole wheat whole grain English Muffin and a 50 cal light baby bell. My beverages of choice water and herbal tea.


My husband came to my rescue this evening to save me from poaching any more eggs. He has made baked salmon for dinner with corn and sweet potatoes.


While today may not have been exciting, I kept on track and that is the most important part.


I am looking forward to starting the WW portion of my weight loss journey this week. My hope is that using their principles combined with clean eating will help me establish good portion control and keep my overall eating at a level conducive to weight loss.


Thank you to everyone who has been following the blog for 18 days now. I am encouraged to keep going by each and every climbing page view.