30+ Lbs Gone

It's been a crazy summer with work and home but through it all I've managed not to give up, give in or lose the momentum to reach my goal.  Not exactly sure what my goal is, I just know that I'm getting this blub off.

The three week vacation in August turned into a renovation extravaganza, gutting our main bathroom to the studs and on my birthday which coincided with the last day of our holidays,  I was in our new soaker tub admiring out handiwork.  We did it all, which had many challenges fitting new beautiful fixtures into a 1954 build.

While I was off I visited my doctor and he pulled one of my 2 medications for diabetes and told me my blood pressure was very low so that pill may be next.  I know I'll never get off my thyroid medication, as I don't have a thyroid, but there that's one of my goals is to no longer take diabetes or high blood pressure medications!

So the body transformation - I think I'm getting the mind transforming too.  As of this Thursday's weigh-in, I'm down 30.5 lbs.  Since May 16th that's 2 lbs a week - the recommended rate at which to lose weight.  I have to say this as I really want those Biggest Loser double digit losses every week and kick myself that I don't have huge losses.

I'm still on Jenny Craig and plan to do so probably until November.  I'm OK with the food and if our family goes out I can eat off the menu, I just have a good think about the big picture and seem to make the wise choice.

I have a trick to deal with get togethers at friends houses - bring lots of treats, sit away from the food and when things get passed around, pass it on - the last evening over at a friend’s I brought a 8 section carrousel full of candy and nuts.  Everyone was munching away and they didn't notice that I wasn't - I sipped on my drink (I can nurse a drink for hours now) so I looked like I was partaking, no one noticed.   My friend is an awesome - I mean we call her Martha Stewart - cook so I did try her hot pepper peach salsa, but that was it I tried it, it was delicious, I didn't have a serving but I did enjoy what I had and didn’t feel I deprived myself.  Next morning I wasn’t thinking “I shouldn’t have eaten (or drank) …”.

I did invest in a BodyMedia Core band and have worn it since Wednesday.  It tracks my movements – knows if it’s light, vigorous, etc, tracks the number of steps I take and tracks my sleep and just that time I lay in bed but not really in a deep sleep.  I logged everything I consume.  So I’m so happy with another toy in my life – I love stats and figures and charts and graphs, this is fun.  I’ve learned my first night I slept for 3.25 hours and last night I slept for 4.4 hours, so I’m going to work on getting to bed before 12 on a week night, since I do get up at 5 am – sleep is a major part of weight loss.

I’m back to walking, have gone out every lunch hour and tonight I will walk just under 6 km to the train station (son come to borrow the car and this is a great opportunity – check me out I’m not grumbling or taking the subway down, I really do see this as an opportunity to get some exercise, log the steps and burn off those calories).  OK, now just my luck I’m going to start out and get hit by a car and die and I’ll never get to my goal.

Biggest challenge – finding a ready-made salad dressing I like that is low in sodium, calories and good flavour.  So far I’m not having much luck, so I think I’ll try to create my own (that friend I mentioned – I’m bbming her now for a good recipe).

Here’s to another good week 50lbs off by November here I come!

First 20 Done, Check, Off The List!

After feeling as though this journey is in vain (yes that can be taken as useless and as narcissistic) I am so happy to report that I’m down my first 20 lbs – it’s taken six weeks (OCD kicking in, where's my calculator?…3.3 lbs on average per week) and I’m feeling the difference.  This ain’t no Biggest Looser success and I’m over that expectation.

I’m not feeling deprived, not craving anything – there seems to be enough variety in the Jenny Craig foods that I’m good.  I have had meals out, but I can order a beautiful salad and be so satisfied (who isn’t when somebody else has gone to all that trouble to wash, chop and prepare all those incredible crunchy flavours).  I’ve attended  a 2 ½ day work retreat with copious amounts of alcohol and eaten the resort food.  I enjoy a Caesar a few nights a week.  I’m able to live this way.

Now, it won’t go on forever, one can only eat prepackaged food for so long, but I’m going to give this until the end of summer (I may take a break in August as I’ll be on holidays for a few weeks – but I’ll cross that bridge  when I come to it).

My Jenny Craig counselor asks what my goals are for the week, I’m always stumped by this, it’s to keep on track, feel the difference but not let this be my all consuming thought.  I just realized that in the past, as I prepared for events, I’d pre-plan what restaurant would be there or along the way.  I no longer think about this.  I remember driving to work events that included an overnight and one of my recurring thoughts was “where am I going to eat dinner tonight?.”  This isn’t happening any longer.

Long term goal -  to be a hot momma at one of my boss’ retirement dinner this coming November.  I love him dearly and he’ll be moving out of province so I don’t want his last memory of me as being the size of a house, but rather being on my way to my Kirstie Alley bod.  So that’s 18 weeks away (out comes my trusty calculator – if an average of 2 lbs a week loss that would get me down 56 lbs – if I retained my 6 week average of 3.3 lbs a week, that would get me down 79.4 lbs).  Debbie Doubter just kicked in, that would be all too awesome and near impossible.  But I’m setting the goal and posting it here – I’m committing.   

November hot momma here I come!

First Month Done!

It's been an adventure this first month on Jenny Craig.  First off the biggest realization is food portions and eating every 3 hours is key.  What we are served going out for dinner or at home are huge portions of food  - I'm astounded when I go to a restaurant and see the size of meat, pasta servings, etc.  no wonder there's a number of us so over weight in North America.  All the TV shows dedicated to food just glorifies eating and some programs entice you to want to try everything.  Darn that new program "You Gotta Eat Here" - it's Canadian with so many featured restaurants that could be just a drive away, but I'm not gonna do it.

My review of Jenny Craig is positive - not having to think about what to eat, weigh or measure everything is awesome.  I'm into the groove of having fruit, cottage cheese, milk, salads and fresh non-starchy veg's every day.  I still crave something at night so I always make sure to switch out the Jenny Craig snack (cheese popcorn, cupcakes, snack bar, etc.) so that I have that as my treat at night.  Doing this has saved me from slipping off the path.  In the past 4 weeks I have had 2 bags of microwaved popcorn that were not on the plan during week moments, but I haven't dipped into the chips, cookies or other treats that I always have in for my boys.

I've eaten out once every week, not as a treat but for events but still stuck with the guidelines of the program.  My biggest downfall was last week going out to dinner to celebrate a retirement - food wasn't a problem but I did have light beer, a few bloody Caesars and wine - not a good combination, wasn't pretty the next day, but I was still down in weight.  

Results after my first month - 15 lbs and 5 inches gone.  

I'm seeing progress and feeling great.  Helps that I'm carving time out during my 10 hour workdays (I have a problem with work/life balance) to go for a walk every lunch hour - before I just grabbed something to eat while I worked at my desk.  Some weeks it's been 3 out of 5 days I've walked, but this past week it's 5 out of 5 days.  Work life is always consuming, but right now there is a lot going on so to carve out "me" time takes planning and I'm doing the planning - being out of the house 13 hours a day makes it challenging - I feel guilty when I get home at night to say I'm out for a walk or head to a gym when I haven't seen my family since the night before, so I cram a little into my work day.  I'll get better at this.

On the fun front - HBO's Girls is my new favourite guilty pleasure.  I love this show - God to be in my 20s again and the things and life I'd do differently. 


I'm off to tackle month 2 starting with week 5, hoping planning to be doing the same celebration in a month.
 

End of Week 3

I love being “in the know.” I’m finding it a lot of fun to watch the news as 50 Shades of Grey spreads through friends and the media.  I’m almost through the second book in the trilogy and haven’t lost interest yet – I liken it to my obsession with True Blood – I believe I saw a hard copy version of the latest in the Sookie Stackhouse novels at Costco the other day but restrained myself!

On 50 Shades, during my 2 ½ hour drive to get to a work conference this morning, I listened to a radio station as they took calls about the new sexual freedoms women are finding while they read the books.  The Announcers were making fun of u 50 year old women who were into the book and that it was gross to think a 50 year old woman as being sexual or sensual.  Foolish boys, don’t they realize the woman who wrote the book, EL James who is a 50+ year old woman.  Don’t they know that woman in their 50s can be interested, intrigued, active!  sexually.  What they could learn, if they were lucky.

This is the end of week 3 on Jenny Craig and although I started this journey as I have every other weight loss attempt expecting to lose weight at the same rate as they do on “The Biggest Loser”…oh but then I’d have to work out for hours every day, not go into work, not have a family or oh yah, have a 3 hour commute everyday!  So I’m down 12 lbs in the three weeks and I’m happy.  A little obsessed with hopping on to my bathroom scale and the scale I keep in my office every day (I’ve got to break myself from this habit…that and always having to pull three – three, not two, three - paper towels every time I  wash my hands in the office washroom).

Jenny Craig seems to be working for me.  Food program has plenty of food for how I eat – I’ve flipped the afternoon treat, if there is one, to the evening snack.  Evenings are my challenge, so if I save the treat of the day to have around 9pm then I don’t start foraging for other food which is my downfall time.

Tonight I’m attending a retirement party which includes a night out at a restaurant (going to eat off the menu) and much drinking involved.  As I write I plan not to lose sight of my goals, but the work mates I’ll be celebrating with are ones who can easily lead me astray…Lord knows we have fun when we see one and other the four or five times a year.  So, we’ll see next week how this night of debauchery affects my new life style.

Thanks To SNL

It all started with me walking in to tell my kids to turn down the sound on the TV and the funniest skit on "Fifty Shades of Grey" was playing on their 2012 Mother's Day Special.  I hadn't heard of the book and was immediately intrigued so I downloaded the book to my Kobo.  

Thoughts of 50 Shades got me to thinking about sex, my life and what I was doing with the second half of it.  

Not since the night I lay in the back window of my parent’s car gazing up to the night sky the eve of turning 9, as Mom and Dad changed a flat tire on our way home from our cottage,  that I‘ve contemplated my mortality.  Things were never so bleak for me that night, realizing that my parents wouldn’t be alive for ever and either would I. Thinking about my life, of course my thoughts rolled around to my weight.  I’ve never been svelte, but I did wear a bikini when I was a teen and looked damn good but since then it’s been a downhill battle – I’ve been losing and the fat’s been winning for years.

So I got to thinking about what I’ve done over the years to try and take on the challenge of getting back into that bikini.  I’ve tried all kinds of diets, eating regimes, tricks, but my will power has never proven to be any type of lasting warrior, it just kind of rolls over and plays dead as I pillage the cupboards at night. 

Over the past years I’ve heard about Jenny Craig but know no one who has gone on the program.  I watched Kirstie Alley and her success on the program loosing 100 lbs.  She is absolutely beautiful and I love her personality.  I figure if I have a role model for how I would love to look now, let alone how amazingly sexy she looks  at 61 – well that it a goal to strive for.

I took the challenge and I joined Jenny Craig and started this journey to reshape myself inside (Lord knows there’s a hot mess going on in there) and outside.  I’m taking this adventure on in one month chunks.  I started the new way of living on Thursday, May 17, 2012.  This blog will be my report on how I fair with Jenny Craig, my outside transformation and my internal 50 shades of hot mess.

I’ve just started week 3 and am down 10 lbs after two weeks.  I’ve experienced two sugar lows this past week that indicate to me that my Type II diabetes meds are probably too much with this new portion-controlled eating style.  Who knew what “normal” portions of food should be – it reminds me of the size of meals my Great Grandmother used to put on her plate, how times have changed and maybe they shouldn’t have!  I’ll have to see my doctor, but not until I’m sure I need to – who knows better than me…oh yah, another thing I need to change.  

I’ve never blogged before, so this may not be pretty, but I’ll learn as I try something else new in my life.