Oops I forgot to post for a month...

I have been meaning to write a few blog posts on here but I have honestly been too lazy to get it done. I can assure you that I have been continuing my eating plan and have been updating a lot on my instagram page. 

Top from TJmaxx size medium and capris from Kmart size 11 (a little big)

So on March 27th, the last post I did, I weighed in at 153.4. April 6th I lost .8 which was the start of the .8 of a pound cycle.

I have been going through a bit of a "funk" the past few weeks. I wouldn't call it a plateau because honestly my heart just wasn't in it. It started with a week of me experimenting with not tracking and just using portion control/things I have learned in the 8 months I have been at this to make the right choices. I honestly get tired of tracking everything I eat, worrying if I am going to see a number in the red at the end of the day at the bottom of the screen. It is exhausting. It is mentally frustrating sometimes as well.
So I did that for a week, and I gained back that .8 of a pound, not surprisingly.

 I threw my husband a surprise 30th birthday party and that kind of snowballed into like a week of eating whatever I wanted.

Surprisingly I lost weight that week, but I really felt off track, off my game, not good physically and mentally. It really messes with your head when you know you should be eating one way, and a part of you tells yourself "It's ok, you have lost 22 pounds you can have one week of this or that" and then the other part tells you "You better watch out, or you will go right back into the old patterns and gain it all back." and in reality this is a real fear after weight loss. It is like a mental game most of the time, and you feel often that if you eat one thing that isn't healthy that you are undoing every bit of hard work you have ever done, and when in reality, you aren't. You may be bloated for a few days but usually one meal will not get you that much off track.

 Junior's size medium "Derek heart" from Kohls.

After that, I had to get my head in the game. I had to really remember that I am not finished yet. I can be proud of my 22 pound loss, but I can also keep working at doing better. I know how I feel when I eat like crap for days in a row, I know that I feel sick, lethargic, gross, and mentally like I have failed. I know that I want to continue at weight loss. I know that if I just decide to fall back into my old ways that I WILL gain at least some of it back. It's just science. So I have to mentally realize that things may never be the same. And I have to remember that that is not necessarily a bad thing. If I am feeling down like I want to give up, all I have to do is go back and look through the photos of myself at my higher weight and remember how unhappy I felt with myself then, and ask myself if it is worth it? Am I ok with going back to my old habits if it means feeling that way again? I think most of the time I would tell myself no it isn't.

I lost the .8 again this week.

 I am determined to break this .8 of a pound this week. I am eating as healthy as I can, and watching my portions. I weighed myself this morning and I was at 151.2, but I do not like to "count my chickens before they hatch" so to speak.

Dress, necklace and belt all Old navy (size medium)

There is always temptation around me. My wonderful husband, God love him, is losing a ton of weight for no reason. He is not trying at all, and his clothes are falling off of him. So he can eat all day long and burn a ton of calories at work and doesn't even give it a thought. While I am sitting over here eating carrots and secretly cursing him under my breath (I kid, I kid)

gap size medium cardigan and size 10 jeans

Derek was talking about going and getting something to eat yesterday after we finished garage sales and I really contemplated it and decided to go home and make something we could both enjoy instead. I am glad that I did. I know if I chose to do that I would either have gotten off track all day, or felt bad and guilty for the rest of the week probably.

I came home and mae baked "fried" mozzarella sticks and baked "fried" pickles, as well as a few chicken bites with Sweet baby rays buffalo sauce on it. All for 300 calories and I didn't have the guilt but had the craving of a "treat" food satisfied.

medium Target brand cardigain, gap size medium top and size 10 american eagle capris)

Here's to keeping on track, and not feeling deprived! Probably something that I will struggle with forever!

Weekly Weigh-in!

I am very excited about this weigh-in this week because I have reached a total weight loss of 20 pounds!! I have been so emotional about this, it is such a proud moment, a great milestone in my weight loss. 

When I started losing weight seven months ago, I NEVER expected for this to last. I have tried so many diets in the past. I tried and after a few short weeks I would always give up. My weight watchers membership was up to be renewed in January and I decided not to renew it and what happened...I gained back 4 pounds. I knew that I was not going to stand for that and I kept going. I had to re-train myself to not eat for no reason, not to splurge all the time, and  to track every meal. 

I am so glad that I decided to pick back up and not give up because it is so rewarding to see yourself go down a size or two, have to buy new bras because your breasts are getting smaller (Derek didn't love that!) 

It is amazing to look back at photos of yourself and realize how far you have come. It is amazing to hear people tell you how much better you look. It is amazing to look in the mirror and see the me I remember, not the fat version of me that I was so unhappy with. 

 

Left was 3/25/2013 and right was 3/25 2014 

Losing this amount of weight has been a motivator to keep myself going. I really didn't have huge expectations because I honestly would look at the amount of weight I wanted to lose and I would get stressed out and scared and never believe that I could lose that much. I always said I just wanted to lose some, and even if it was just a little bit anything was better than nothing. And that worked for me because I didn't set all this pressure on myself. I took breaks. I had cheats. I spent time screwing up and realizing what I really wanted. But now I am determined to set a goal and achieve it. If I can lose those 20 pounds, I can lose the 15-20 more that I would really like to get back to where I would ultimately like to be. But I also am very happy with where I am now. I have so much more confidence, I am more comfortable in clothes, and that was a huge part of why I was so depressed being overweight, was not finding clothes that fit or look good on me. I am short and I have big boobs and I have extra fat. Not a good combo while clothing shopping!

Jeans are American Eagle Size 10 and Top is a medium in Merona brand which in my opinion runs small so its a bit tight! 

After last week being spring break and eating out 4 times I tried this week to make sure that I ate as clean as possible and I didn't even have a cheat meal. The closest I got was indulging in a fudge round that I bought for the kids at Sam's Club and it was not satisfying at all. 

I made lean ground beef chili with store bought cinnamon rolls and I had 5 @ 60 calories each. 

I made crock pot pork chops which were delicious, with broccoli and a rice side (1/2 cup) all for  300 calories since I only could eat half the meat 

Spaghetti and Turkey meatballs for 300 calories. 

I am that annoying person who is finding it hard to get to my calorie goal for the day. To eat nutritious food it is hard to eat that much! Especially since I have been doing Yoga Inferno so I am trying to eat back half of my calories I burned off there. 

Photo via Amazon

Yoga Inferno is tough but I really like it. I was so sore after the first day, it is definitely a step up in difficulty to Yoga Meltdown. I recommend it though! 

My Fitness Pal VS. Weight Watchers

I have dieted a lot in my life. All the other times in my past I logged my calories both with a site called my-calorie-counter.com and myfitnesspal.com . I on a whim decided to try Weight watchers I honestly can't even remember why I decided to try it maybe a pin I saw about it or something. But anyway, I am used to tracking my food and I find that it is the only way to keep myself on track while watching what I eat and trying to lose weight. 

I signed up for another month of weight watchers in February, and I think that only lasted 2 weeks. I was a little burned out on it I guess, and quite frankly I didn't want to pay $18.95 for logging my food. So I found an app on google play that was $1.99 that is supposed to be like the weight watchers app and log your food just like weight watchers. Well, let me tell you this is not the case. If you follow these apps or sites that say they are the same as weight watchers they are not. There are so many things on there that were really wrong on the points value. Being one weight watchers for 4 months really allowed me to learn the points on a lot of items, and these were not correct. This makes it hard to properly understand your eating habits and if you are eating the correct amount.  

So I stopped using this app and I decided to try myfitnesspal. I have used it before like I said and it is very easy. It is free to use and they have an app that you can log on your smartphone. Win! 

It has been over a month now and I would have to say that I am very pleased with myfitnesspal. You can add friends and use them as encouragement, or go to the community and ask questions. I don't really use these features though, I just get on and track. 

I would say that logging food is very easy and user friendly. I often found that while using weight watchers I had to add a lot of my own foods that took a lot of time, where as Myfitnesspal has a ton of foods in their database in the brands that I use such as Kroger, and Aldi brands. This really saves me time and makes it more likely to track. 

 One of the biggest things that I like on Myfitnesspal vs. weight watchers is that you can see all the specs of your food. Weight watchers just shows you your points and you don't know the sugar, protein, carb, sodium, and fat content that you really need to know to be able to find out what foods work for you as far as weight loss and which ones don't. It is quite an eye opener to see you went over on sodium this day by 1000 mg or something like that, where as with weight watchers you can eat as much sugar or sodium as you want as long as you don't go over your points. With that, as far as weight watchers goes, you can pretty much eat anything as long as you are within your points, which I suppose you can as well with myfitnesspal but they also give you goals day as far as protein, fat, sodium, sugar etc, and that way you are more balanced in your diet. I see a lot of people on instagram who are on weight watchers and they are eating chicken nuggets from McDonald's for 8pp, and in reality, that is so bad for you that even though it is only 8 pp, you really should not be eating it.  

That being said, the flexibility weight watchers was what ultimately got me to participate. I liked the fact that I didn't feel like I had to be deprived and I didn't have to stop eating foods I liked. But I also know quite a bit about food and nutrition and eating healthy and I know what is good for me and what is bad (whether I do it for not is a different story!)

The exercise logging is about the same as weight watchers. I do workout videos and I don't have a heart rate monitor to track how many calories I burn, so I just guess and I don't really know how many calories I burn. I just honestly don't exercise enough to justify buying one right now, but I am not opposed to it in the future if I ever become a gym rat (don't hold your breath!) 

All in all if I had to do it differently, I would have done Weight Watchers to start off with for sure. It was a great transition into weight loss and I had great success on it. It is literally the only weight loss plan I have ever stuck to for more than a few weeks. And I know that a lot of it was the flexibility that it allowed me. But for me now in this phase of my weight loss I want to try to eat leaner, eat cleaner, and get more focused on being healthy more than just eating a certain amount of points even if it's ice cream or pasta. 

I recommend myfitnesspal to people who really want to understand their eating better. I have been logging with myfitnesspal for 37 days straight and since starting, I have lost a total of 8 pounds (my official weigh in is tomorrow ) So I believe that is a big weight loss!

If you have any questions please let me know!

Weekly Weigh in

Yesterday was my weigh in day...Down another 1.4 lbs!

I had to exchange my scale for another because it was giving me different readings every time I stood on it, and it wasn't a vanity issue trust me :) I bought my scale from BBB and highly recommend that if you are going to buy anything of value, a food scale, regular scale, kitchen appliances, go there. You get 20 percent coupons all the time, and they have a very good return/exchange policy. I bought mine in November and came in with box and receipt and they just exchanged it without even looking at my receipt.

This week has been TOUGH. I have had some pretty severe cravings which I know mean that it is my body adjusting to eating healthier, but that doesn't make it less intense. I did really good about managing them, but I did allow myself a little leniency, aka a few oreos ;) 

 Saturday we went out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Before that I hadn't eaten out in almost 3 weeks, so that is a non-scale victory for sure! 

I have been saving most of my food pictures because it is obnoxious to post every meal you eat on Instagram...sorry but it is.

 Chicken Cheeddar Bacon Pasta  I usually make a full fat version, but the light one was just as good!! 

 I made these zucchini fries thinking they would be good, NA. Didn't land with me or Derek. He usually can pretty much eat anything even if he doesn't LOVE it, but these, he couldn't and he even likes zucchini.

 Turkey, Turkey, Turkey, and egg whites!

Pork Chops with green beans, and cheesy hasbrown casserole. The recipe made 12 servings, and this is 2 here, and I was stuffed. I ate a serving with my eggs this morning. yum!  114 calories per serving! Not

 Buffalo Chicken. 300 calories per serving. I don't know how to cook breaded chicken in the oven without it being soggy and having the breading fall off. Any suggestions on that? The side is Cheesy Broccoli Quinoa. 159 calories per serving. VERY filling. I only at 1/4 of it, and not all of that chicken.

 

I have been doing yoga meltdown 3 or 4 x a week. I love this workout, but you have heard me rave about it before so I will skip it this time! 

 

Chinese was my cheat meal this week. I have been craving it HARD. I love, love, love some General's Chicken with rice and soy sauce. YUM! I could eat it at every meal. LOL. Kidding, Kind of. 

I feel like ever since I started losing weight I just can't get a pair of jeans to fit me right. I am always in between sizes I feel like. I rarely wear jeans anyway honestly but when I do, I want them to fit. They all are so tight in my waist and so loose in my crotch/let area, and by the end of the day they are really loose. I hate jeans....

I feel like I never have anything to wear. I always feel like something is either too big for too small for me, I just want to feel normal in my clothes! HA! 

It has been almost 3 weeks since I stared logging with my fitness pal over weight watchers, and truthfully the jury is still out. I am still trying to convert things to points in my head. There are pros and cons to both, but when it gets to one month I will do a review of both and see what I decide to continue with. But in my opinion, is is easier to log on my fitness pal than on weight watchers. The way they word their food and don't have all the brands I use makes it more difficult for me, as I have to add a new food constantly, which is not the case with my fitness pal. 

I am at 18 pounds lost now, I can't believe it. I am almost at 20! When I get to 20 my "reward" will be new workout/activegear. The gear I have now is from when I was 175 pounds and even though they may have been to small then, they are stretched out now and too big, so I need new comfy clothes. So that is my motivation to get to 20. 

Weekly Weigh in and updates

I worked really hard this week to get my body into weight loss mode. It was surprisingly easy. I usually shop every 2 weeks on Thursday but I opted to break it up into weeks this time so I could see if that would help me keep fresh produce in the house. It also kept me from loading up on snacky items I didn't need. I reached for the fruit and veggies instead of a ramen or something else I would normally eat.

Some of the things I have been eating lately are:
-turkey wrap on whole wheat tortilla
-reduced fat triscuits with a light laughing cow (aldi brand) cheese wedge
-carrot, celery, and cucumber slices with veggie dip
-Light English muffin breakfast sandwiches (I make ahead and freeze them for easy breakfasts)
-Light Zuppa Toscana
-Lean Gourmet Creamy Rigatoni with Broccoli.
-Lean Pockets Pretzel Crust Jalapeno Chicken (yum)
 -Great value Mountain trail mix. ( I grab a few of these often because I get low blood sugar and need to have protein. )

I know how to lose weight. I know what foods to eat. I am not one of those people who says "I don't know why I'm not losing weight, wah wah wah" If you eat bad, you don't lose weight. For me, it is more of a control thing, you know what you SHOULD do, but what you WANT to do are two different things sometimes.

I have started counting calories with my fitness pal vs. weight watchers this week. I will write a review of what I think after I get a feel of doing calories for a while .

I did Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown 3x this week. If you have read my blog for a while you know I have been doing this off and on for years. I love it. I HATE to exercise. As in, despise. I am not an athletic person. I didn't do atheltics in high school. I was just a petite person (my whole family is) and never worried about it. So for me to actually enjoy a workout, it is HUGE in my book. It is not huge on cardio, but you are sweating by the end of it, and it really helps your love handles, butt, thighs, and arms! What more can you ask for??

This is a side-by-side of when I started weight watchers to recently. I have taken time off, and realized that I was spiraling out of control and had to get back on track.

It is so easy to say "oh I'm not on ww anymore I can get whatever I want x2!" And then you wake up feeling bloated, tired, hungry and cranky craving sugar and fattening foods. I am such a food person. I love food. I love going out to dinner. I love me some Generals chicken, some Pizza Hut, and some Olive Garden Alfredo. So for me to cut out all those things in my life it is a BIG challenge and one that makes me proud. I am not fortunate to eat whatever I want and not gain weight like I may have been able to do in my younger. If you can do that, I envy you. My hopes for the future and my life is that I can get to a point where I can find balance between eating healthy things and having things I really enjoy without feeling guilty, and without gaining.

This was me in high school. (on the right) I was skinny, and I ate out EVERY day for open lunch. I also worked in a pizza place, and so I would eat pizza, or other fast food 2-4 times a week for dinner. I never gained, I was in a size 5-7 and I didn't even worry about my weight. My mom has been skinny as long as I can remember, my grandma is as long as I can remember, and my aunts/uncles as long as I can remember. I would say me being as big as I was is an exception in my family, which made me wonder why it was happening. I guess I was in denial about the fact that if you eat that way and don't exercise, it will catch up with you one day.  You can read more about that here.




I am down 17 pounds since starting, and my goal is within 2 weeks to be at a total loss of 20, and work out 3x a week. I don't want to get overwhelmed and lose motivation, But I also want to work on toning.

3 weeks of ups and downs

This past few weeks has been tough food wise. I will be the first to admit that I have not been all in. I have been on the fence about this weight loss thing, and if I was ready to commit. I would do pretty good during the day and then just let all the progress go out the window in the evenings.

Derek doesn't think I "need" to lose weight and doesn't really understand how disciplined you have to be in order to get those results. So that makes it difficult when he is home not to "sabotage" me! LOL! I had a talk with him about what I need from him and I think he gets it a little better now. It is very important to have people around that support you. Instagram (megancorral669) has been a huge support for me, and I am so thankful for that. You can click through and see so man women and men who have started at much higher weights than I did, and worked their ass off to get healthy. It is very inspiring! These are not fitness models with 6 packs on pinterest that make you want to jump off a cliff because you will NEVER look like that even after listening to the motivational quote written over their photo. HA!

So I had a long mental discussion with myself and told myself that I was either in it or not. But I thought back to all the reasons why I decided to do this in the first place. I looked at photos of myself at 175 (15 pounds heavier) and then watched my photos show pounds and pounds lost, new clothing because the old are too big, and remembering the feelings that I had when I took each photo. That really helped me realize that I DO want this. I just have to fully commit.

So I have decided to cancel my subscription to weight watchers and use an app that I paid 1.99 for to count points, and for the time being I am counting points and logging my calories with myfitnesspal. I feel like with 5 months of weight watchers under my belt I understand points well enough to go on my own and use a "knock off " app to get the job done. Is it as user friendly ? NO. But it is 18.95 per month cheaper so we will make it work.

Back to weight watchers

Today I re-joined weight watchers online. It is what I KNOW will help me lose weight. In the 2 months that I have been off plan, I have gained back about 3-4 pounds, going back and fourth with them. I do NOT want to ruin all my hard work so I decided to grab the reins and get back on track. 

I thought that I could continue to at least maintain without weight watchers because honestly I felt really good where I was at. But in the back of my mind I knew that I wasn't finished. I knew I had to attack these last 15/20 lbs to get to my ultimate goal. And that is what I am going to do!

What really got me was going through and looking for spring/summer clothes on pinterest. All the cute colored short-shorts and tank tops. I remember how miserable last summer I was. I was almost 175 pounds. I was sweaty. I was bloated and my thighs would rub together and cause them to "chafe" if I was out shopping, running around etc. (TMI? Sorry!) I would try to wear shorts under my dresses so I wouldn't have this problem. It is embarrassing and not something I want to do again. 

I usually like to start buying a few months in advance for the new season, but then I had to sit there and think about what size I would be buying. I will NOT buy size 12 summer clothes. My goal is at least a 10. I was able to fit tightly into gap 10 jeans before, but now that I have gained a few pounds back that isn't happening. 

I am bloated, feeling just sluggish and truthfully not good about myself. I stopped drinking soda again last week. I wouldn't drink pop like I used to, but I would have Derek bring me one on his way home, etc. More than I was doing on weight watchers. Another bad habit I got into was having him bring home crunch bars for me with the pop. Total SUGAR ADDICTION going on. So that is my next focus. I also have been trying to retrain my body to not eat when I'm bored, just because I can, etc. Its tough. When you aren't "on a diet" you sort of get this feeling of entitlement for whatever it is, like "Oh, I can get a crunch bar no big deal." or "I don't need to use reduced fat cheese, I can go back to regular" when in reality that will only be a disaster. You have to take the tools you learned and CONTINUE to use them in your every day life or you WILL gain it back. DUH.

Fried everything...not a good idea...

 So here I am. 

Before it gets out of control. 

Before I lose too much momentum. 

Before I get discouraged and forget how far I have come already. 

Weigh in today was at 160.2 My weight at the end of weight watchers in December was 157.  I am confident that in the next week or two I will be back to that with just making the sugar, pop, and simple changes to the foods I eat.