My FINAL Shapeup Journey

I keep trying to think of things that kept me on track back when I lost 80 pounds for the 1st time. Or what worked when I lost 100 pounds the 2nd time. And while my life was in a different place and chapter then, the one thing I keep remembering is how I loved to Blog. I blogged every bit of my journey and sitting down to write every day was a highlight of my day. So, I figured it fitting as I re-start my last and final journey to getting healthy once and for all, that I pick up blogging again.

Now, you must stay with me through these first few awkward weeks, I will not deny the fact that I am currently a rusty writer. But, know that it will be worth it.

Yesterday seemed like your typical "I'm going to start on Monday" day, but what you may not realize is how much preparation went into yesterdays "Monday". I had googled, printed, pinned, planned, and prayed. Ok, all those p's were totally an accident, but a cool one. Let me give you the condensed version of where I've been for 3+ years. Living life in all it's glory, spending time with my babies and my husband, and not being happy in my own skin. Mind you, not letting the world know this because you know... "I have a pretty face"... but remembering my potential and physical attributes before I let myself go.

2 babies, a full time work at home job, commitments, parties, baby showers, volunteering at my kids school, girls night outs, celebration dinners, you name it and they've all taken precedence over my health in recent years. But you know what? I won't be AROUND to keep experiencing all those things very long if I don't get my health in check. I want to do more than make excuses, I want to see more than a blob in the mirror, I want to live again.

So stay tuned on what will be my final Shapeup Journey. Yesterday was a good day. The kind of day you go to bed being proud of yourself for. I ate good all day, and nailed an hour long workout at the gym (30 mins strength, and 30 mins cardio). It's probably a good thing I couldn't move last night, which meant no trips to the kitchen after dinner.

I'm not going to mention my starting weight here just yet, but just know I've never  before seen and will never see again that number on the scale yesterday. And today I'm down 3 pounds from it.

Eating healthy √
Exercise √
Tracking Calories √
Positive Example √
Excited to reclaim my health √

Have been struggling...

***Hi ya'll. I didn't post a blog last week because I like to run away from my problems instead of talking them through. :)

So, I did really well tracking every single bite of food up until the night of July 4th...

I made homemade ice cream which is definitely one of my biggest weaknesses. I had points left from the day so I was going to allow myself 1 bowl. Then my husband went and brought home Lofthouse 4th of July cookies. You know the ones... Soft. Crumbly. Delicious. 

So I had 1 bowl of ice cream and 1 cookie. 

And instead of walking away from the situation, I kept sitting there and had ANOTHER bowl of ice cream and ANOTHER cookie. 

About 15 hours before my weigh in...

So, I ended up with a gain of .6 last week. 

And while I'm at it that's not all...

I fell into a downward spiral of not tracking after that. The husband had to work 18 hour days to help with a fire that's burning in the mountains locally and I was with both kids alone and I'm without a doubt an emotional eater. 

I went into yesterday's weigh in feeling low and depressed and told the lady weighing me in "it's been a bad week, I've been struggling since the 4th..."

Her reply was quite awesome and she said "we'll the 4th was only a few days ago so get back on track!"

Then she said "and its not that bad cause you lost" ..... And I thought she said .2 pounds at the time... But when I got in my car and read my booklet she actually said 1.2!

I discussed it with my husband and he says that I thought I ate worse than I really did. I guess so because I was not expecting a loss. 

But honestly I hate feeling like that. I like walking into weigh ins confident. Knowing full well I tracked all week and made healthy choices. 

So yes I'm down this week but I don't know how and I'm not proud of it. 

I'm back on track mentally (key word) and tracked all day yesterday. I also have a plan to start fitting in some workouts soon. 

***honest post over

Weigh In Day

Today was weigh in day and I lost another 2 pounds, bringing my grand total after 1 month on Weight Watchers to -14.6 pounds. I'm happy!

The last couple of days my daughter has been sick and I've had an even harder time than usual eating all my points. In fact at 7:00pm last night I had 20 points left. I grabbed a few semi healthy things from the fridge that I thought might add up to close to 10 but I didn't track them and I'm sure I still went to bed with around 10 points left. When your kid is sick there is no time to eat. 

I was not able to stay for the meeting today because I had to take the aforementioned kid to the doctor but I usually don't mind running in and then out to just weigh in. 

Speaking of the meeting, I don't think I've mentioned my plan for Weight Watchers yet...

For Mother's Day my mom gave me $50 and specifically said it was for new shoes. Well I said no thanks I'd much rather be skinny. :)

So I used the $50 towards a $49 WW Monthly Pass. 

Then, my husband gave me a handwritten gift certificate for a mani/pedi and I said no thanks I'd much rather be skinny. ;)

So I used the $50 towards a $49 WW Monthly Pass. 

I had told him I wanted a WW membership for Mother's Day but he refused to get it for me. Probably smart, honey, but I swear I wouldn't have minded. :)

So, I have 2 full months of WW monthly passes and it runs through the end of July. I figured I wanted something to get me back in the door and get good

momentum going. My original plan was to cancel everything after those 2 months but I've gone and fallen in love with the WW mobile app. 

I'm going to see how much it costs but after July I will probably just do WW online using their mobile app and not go into the meetings anymore. I do go to the mommy and me meeting so I'm able to bring both kids with me... But I bring both kids with me. LOL

A little stressful at times when during the meeting I'm trying to keep my oldest quiet with workbooks or coloring and then inevitably my youngest wants to nurse and my oldest drops her colored pencils all over the floor. Etc. etc. 

So, I don't foresee a problem with keeping my momentum going and I will just weigh myself at home every Friday instead. If I ever notice myself slipping I can always pop in for a single meeting or even a monthly pass. But with all my success thus far I can't see that happening. 

Here is my awesome graph from the past 4 weeks! Not quite ready to reveal my weight numbers post-pregnancy, maybe after the line graph gets a little steeper. :)

Weigh In

My weigh-in on Friday was full of surprise, milestones, and reached goals. And I was not expecting any of it.

I ate really good all week and tracked everything. My husband wanted Chili's for father's day dinner and while I tracked my entire meal (even 1/4 of a bowl of chips and salsa, yikes! , but also their margarita chicken from the lighter menu) I still dipped into my extra weekly points slightly. So, while I knew I'd lose weight I figured it would be 1-2 pounds again.

Imagine my surprise when the leader told me "you're down -3.6!" I was shocked and thanked her, she said you did the work honey!

The brings my overall total on WW (this time around) to -12.6 in 3 weeks, I'm pretty happy with those numbers!

I surpassed my 5% goal and I also surpassed my -10 pounds goal. So when I spoke up during "celebrations" I got a 5% sticker and a -10 pounds ribbon. Everyone clapped and my daughter also clapped and kissed me and said "good job mommy!!!"

It was very cute of her but that's another blog post all together, letting my daughter know that mommy's going to a meeting called "Weight Watchers". I have many mixed emotions on this. *sigh*

Anyway, GREAT week! I am in the "zone" and loving Weight Watchers!! It's definitely true that losing weight is it's OWN motivation. That and my ultimate goal of 1/2 Marathon weight by my son's 1st bday. Which btw he'll be 10 weeks old on Monday so we all know this year is going to FLY by!

Healthy Egg Scramble

When I was pregnant I made this a few times and it was always so filling and delicious. I eat what is "The Bradley Diet" or "Brewer Diet" when I am pregnant which consists of a lot of healthy foods, getting 80-100 grams of protein a day, which includes 2 eggs, among other requirements. This was a yummy way I found to eat my 2 eggs a day.

I adapted it slightly to be more weight watcher friendly, but it's still just as good.

I sprayed Pam into a skillet and added 1 serving, of Turkey Sausage Crumbles, 1 cup of chopped mushrooms, 1 cup of spinach, and 1 chopped plum tomato. The turkey sausage is already cooked but it basically warms it up plus I like to saute the veggies too.

I let it cook for a couple minutes while I crack 2 eggs in a bowl...

Here's a little secret my friend Katie told me about. My entire life I add a splash of milk to my eggs when I am planning to scramble them but Katie saw on Oprah that you can also add water which helps if you're on WW and you don't have to bother with counting points for milk and they're still fluffy!

After a few minutes I add my eggs and scramble everything together.

And here is the final dish! So much food and so filling and healthy! For only 6 points!!!

Spinach - 0
Mushrooms - 0
Plum Tomato - 0
Eggs (2) - 4
Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles - 2

I also usually add salsa - 0

Enjoy!

Exercise

I mentioned a couple posts back that I wanted to make sure starting WW doesn't affect my milk supply so I was going to hold off on doing any serious exercising and introduce that slowly. I definitely want to exercise because it's one thing to "lose weight" but I wanted to tone and get fit again at the same time. Also, my post 2 babies body isn't what it used to be. :)

We found a really good deal on a mommy garage sale FB site for an Elliptical machine. The only place it can go is the garage so let's just hope I don't die of heatstroke in the summer, but so far my plan is to use it in the mornings.

This morning was my first time using it since we got it last weekend and MAN am I out of shape! I love the elliptical and have been known to spend 45-60 minutes on it in the past, but I barely made it through a 15 minute work out and had to take a few breaks!

My studly husband is currently training for his 965th 7th marathon and runs on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. So my plan is to go down to the garage and use the elliptical on Mondays and Thursdays. At this time my baby wakes up to eat around 5:30 but thankfully goes back down for an hour or two after that. I could work out at night pretty much any night of the week, heck I could even go to the gym after both kids are asleep, but I'm hesitant to do that for 2 reasons:

1) If I work out too late I have a hard time falling asleep.
2) I'm barely getting 6 hours a sleep a night and that's in chunks of being woken up every 2-4 hours all night long, so working out after the baby is asleep means cutting in to my precious sleep because at this point I pretty much go to bed when he does.

Basically, I'm going to get back in to exercising slowly. Not that I can do much of anything right now with such a tiny nursling...

I also have a double jogging stroller that we also got on a mommy garage sale FB site (sold our single, so it practically paid for itself) but it's WAY to hot to take the kids out, even first thing in the morning. I plan to just WALK with this one as my plan at the moment is to run my next Half-Marathon in November 2014.

And I also have a gym membership.

And a Wii fit.

Man, I should have no excuses! I can fit exercise in lots of ways! :)

Flatout Wraps

I mentioned before that I've been obsessed with wraps lately. I've been doing a tortilla with cream cheese and turkey for lunch almost every day.

Friday we had a play date at my good friend Jasmine's house and she introduced me to a whole new kind of wrap! The Flatout Flatbread:

Now this is sort of a cross between a tortilla and pita bread. Its soft and thicker than a tortilla. And pretty healthy too, I got the honey whole wheat. It's only 100 calories or 3 points.

Another thing that made this wrap different was that she used real deli meat and cheese, Boar's Head to be exact. And believe me when I say this, it's all I will buy from now on, SO GOOD! I was worried that I wouldn't know that nutrition content of the deli meat and cheese but not only was there a nutrition pamphlet on the deli counter it was already listed in my Weight Watcher app as a normal food item!

I recreated Jasmine's wrap today:
Flatout (3)
1 tbs olive oil mayo (1)
1 tbs mustard (0)
deli chicken breast, thinly sliced (2)
deli colby jack, thinkly sliced (3)
thinly sliced cucumbers (0)
thinly sliced tomatoes (0)
spinach leaves (0)

= 9 points

Very delicious!

Weigh-In

This past Friday, at weigh-in, I was down another 1.6 pounds, bringing my grand total lost to -9 pounds in 2 weeks!

I had a feeling it would be a little more, I was expecting a 3... but overall I'm very happy because 1) it's a loss 2) it's almost a 2 pounds loss 3) WW has an official  statement on breastfeeding that the mom shouldn't lose more than 2 pounds a week to stay healthy for the baby. SO I'M HAPPY!

I tracked really well last week but allowed myself a little freedom on Sunday when we went to breakfast with our friend or else it might have been more of a weight loss. I ordered an egg white fritatta, but instead of counting the fritatta points I just counted it towards my 49 extra points and still ate 49 additional points that day.

I usually never use my 49 points so they're a nice buffer for when I have a special occasion meal.

I've been still eating pretty healthy, haven't made it to the gym yet (did ya catch the part about me having a newborn? :) but we did buy an elliptical today for really cheap!! from a mommy garage sale website on FB and I plan to use that on the mornings that Evan isn't going out for a run.

I have a couple of blog posts that I need to get out of my head on somethings I've been creating in the kitchen lately. I haven't really followed very many WW recipes, just been making up my own things but they're delicious!!

Well, I'm gonna keep on keeping on with this weight loss!

Weigh-In

I weighed in this morning to wrap up my first week back, post baby #2. I knew I'd had a good week because I quickly fell into a tracking groove and literally tracked every single thing I put into my mouth. I cooked dinner almost every single night, did not eat out once, and tried to make healthy choices instead of only grab-n-go snacks. 

I knew that it was week 1 and week 1's always put up the biggest numbers because your body says "WTH?!" 

I was expecting between a 5 and a 6 pound weight loss and the nice older lady behind the counter almost flipped her wig...

-7.4

She was visibly disappointed when I didn't show too much emotion over my apparently fabulous loss. Don't get me wrong I'm EXCITED! But I was expecting a huge number already so I wasn't SURPRISED. 

I plugged the weight loss into my WW App and dammit wouldn't you know my daily points target went down. Ha!

So now I have 49 a day (last week was 50) and to be totally honest I've been struggling to eat them all. 

I just spent the last 30 minutes, at 7:00pm no less, scrounging the kitchen for 13 more points. I need to make sure I plan my days better. And I was fine mostly all week but if I have a busy day I have to remember to plan accordingly. 

What did I just eat at 7:00pm to total 13 points you wonder?

Lean Cuisine Cheese Cananoli 6

10 toll house crackers 4

2 wedges laughing cow cheese 2

1 serving deli chicken breast 1

(I spread the cheese on the crackers and topped with the thin chicken slices)

Not ideal, but it had to be done!

Now, tomorrow is my husbands company picnic. I volunteered to bring the fruit tray! So I plan on eating fruit and a hot dog. 

Please, let me stay away from the chips!!!! 

Roll-Up Lunch

So, I recently found these individual servings of Wholly Guacamole, they're sold in 100 calorie packs. I haven't been sure what to use them for but I know I love guacamole and avocado so I really couldn't go wrong. 

Well, when I opened the fridge today I saw the deli roasted chicken breast slices and I thought "hey! I'll make a wrap and use guacamole instead of mayo!"

Ingredients:

2 Mission tortillas

1 pouch Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie pack

1 serving of Oscar Mayer nitrate free chicken deli slices (56g)

3 slices of reduced fat Colby cheese slices

I laid the tortillas out and spread half of the pouch on each tortilla. I then measured out my serving of chicken breast and evenly divided the slices among both tortillas. Then I laid the cheese slices out (1.5 slices per tortilla covered the whole thing nicely). Finally I rolled them up!

Clearly they looked appetizing because I took a bite before I realized I hadn't taken a picture yet! :)

Only 11 points!

I will probably have some watermelon too but that's 0 points.