Tomorrow is WI day

and I've definitely done all I can do this week.

I was 100% OP each and every day. I got all my HG's in. I was a good girl.

I never ate in my recliner one time. Well, this morning I fixed my oatmeal and settled in my recliner and even took a bite before I realized what I did. I got out of the chair before I swallowed, so I'm not counting that one! One night it was so cold on the lanai (that's where our only table is) I had my snack on the kitchen floor!

I doubled my exercise this week. This is what the routine looked like.

Tuesday: 3 mile WATP and 2.5 miles on the bike
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: 2 mile WATP with the weights, 15 minutes on the treadmill, 15 minutes on the elliptical.
Friday: 2 mile WATP with weights, 30 minutes on the treadmill, 5 minutes on the elliptical.
Saturday: 60 minutes on the treadmill and 20 on the elliptical
Sunday: 60 minutes on the treadmill and 30 on the elliptical.
Monday: 2 mile WATP with weights in the morning and 3 mile WATP with the belt in the evening.

I never ate after 9PM.

So, I did all I can do this week and now it's up to the scale gods.

I hope they smile on me!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Won't you be my neighbor? OK, I loved Mr. Rogers, I'll admit it. It's just that I'm on such a high here, I think it would be awesome if all of you could be here with me!

Today was nearly perfect. The sun was out, the sky was blue, I was with friends. I saw baby pigs...just how much better does it get?

Today was our eco tour over near Punta Gorda. We were to leave at 9:30 and I was driving. We'd tour the farm, go somewhere else and see manatees, head home and have dinner on the way. Sound awesome? It was.

I planned, and it was perfect. It could have been a disaster, but planning ahead made it a spectacular day. I got up at 6 and had my coffee and packed snacks for the trip as I didn't know where we'd be eating and I wanted to make sure I'd have food. I changed clothes and did the 2 mile WATP with the weights before I left. I was short on time and thought hmmmm I can either eat breakfast or exercise. I did both. I exercised, grabbed my oatmeal and made my friend drive my truck. Sorted. Best of both worlds I say!

We got there and were an hour early so of course they headed to the snack bar. Oh was I prepared. I had a yogurt and grapes while they had cream of broccoli soup and bear claws! I didn't want what they had...amazing.

The tour was fabulous, but that doesn't pertain to this blog. Pixie will Ponder that one later on. We left there and went to see the manatees and left there starving to death. We stopped in a small town at a place nobody had ever been. I was prepared and not worried a bit. If all else failed, I'd have a plain salad and eat when I got home. I had brought along fat free salad dressing and I could always munch more grapes in the car on the way home if need be. Well, this place turned out to be such a nice surprise. I had grilled tilapia, a baked potato and grilled veg. I specifically asked for it to be prepared with no oil. It came looking fabulous. It tasted better! I hate veg as lots of you know. These were awesome. Just zucchini, yellow squash and red peppers but they were excellent. In fact, I ate the fish and veg and brought the tater home for Den. I was stuffed and it was lovely and I wasn't deprived at all. Man what a great feeling!

I got home and did a few things and then tossed on the grubbies and went up to the gym. I did 4o minutes on the treadmill and 5 on the elliptical. Who's your mama???? God do I feel awesome. No, really, feel me!

So, let's tally up this months challenge so far. Today is day 5.

Days I planned my food and stuck to the plan: 5
Days I stayed OP: 5
Days I exercised: 4
Days I did NOT eat in my recliner: 5
Days I did NOT eat after 9PM: 5

Damn I'm on a roll!!!!!

Kick it up a notch

Am I watching Emeril again? Ah, no, but I wish I were.

I decided to ramp up my exercise. Kick it up a notch. Slam it into high gear. What the hell was I thinking? Oh, I watch the Biggest Loser and they sweat and they're old and they can do it. I thought I'd try doubling my exercise this week to see if I had a bigger loss. Who let me think???

It's cold here. I went to the gym. I wanted to warm up on the treadmill and then hop on the elliptical. Some old fart was on the treadmill so I started on the elliptical. I did 5 minutes. The old guy on the treadmill kept glancing out the corner of his eye at me. I think he wasn't sure about the drool that extended from my slack bottom lip and went to the floor. Either that, or he thought I was choking on my tongue and needed the Heimlich maneuver. Thank God he finished and left the room. My 5 minutes ended and I hopped over to the treadmill. Actually, hopped might be too strong a word. My legs felt like Jell-O and my arms were shaking. So, technically, I wobbled over to the treadmill. I did pretty good on that. Hiked at about 3.7 mph and then ramped it up to 4.5mph and did a bit of jogging. That lasted 15 minutes. I went back to the contraption of death, oh, I mean the elliptical and did another 5 minutes. My breath was coming in ragged gasps and I was sweating from every pore. I'd had enough. My MP3 even quit playing. I didn't have pockets so I shoved it in my bra. I suspect it got waterlogged. I went over to do my stretches and found I was breathing too hard to stretch. Doh, I forgot to cool down so back to the freaking treadmill I went. I walked on that for several minutes and started to feel better. I went to do my stretches but somehow ended back up on the elliptical! Did another 5 minutes. Now, definitely stick a fork in me...I was done. I got back on the treadmill and went slow until my heart settled back in my chest. Did my stretches and headed back home.

I walked in the door and immediately popped in my 2 mile WATP DVD...the one with the weights mind you! It was tough but I was doing it. If you're not familiar with the Walking Away the Pounds DVD's...Leslie Sansone is the devil. Her goal in life is to kill me. Oh, she pretends to have my best interest at heart, but she doesn't. She tells me to lift my knees higher, and then says 'oh doesn't that feel good?' Hell no that doesn't feel good! The muscle in the back of my leg feels like it's going to snap! She then has us do side steps. One of the girls in the group (coven) says 'oh I feel it in my abs.' What the hell is an ab? Do I have an ab? I feel something, but it's mainly in my ass and thighs. I'm pretty sure an ab isn't there! I finished the damn DVD anyway and I didn't die. So I guess day 1 of ramping up my exercise didn't kill me.

Something in the belly region kind of hurts. I wonder if it's an ab?

It's probably a hernia from lifting the #2 weights!

Oh goody, I can't wait to exercise tomorrow.

Who the hell turned the heat off?

Sorry, that has nothing to do about weight loss. It's just cold in Florida right now. I winter here for heat, not cold! Oh, sure, it gets sunny and nice in the afternoon, but I expect more! OK, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Yesterday was WI. I lost 1.4. Yippee! Shit! Yep, mixed reaction for sure. I understand 1.4 is good. It's nearly 6 sticks of butter. Yada, yada, yada. I worked my ass off last week. I wanted more. I gained 2.6 the week before and I wanted to lose it last week. Whine, whine, whine, poor baby didn't get what she wanted and she's pissed. She didn't deserve the gain and she didn't deserve to not get rid of the gain. I am allowed to piss and moan and get it off my chest though. OK, done now. No use crying over not spilled fat.

How's my new 30 day challenge going? Very well, thank you for asking! I'm only eating out at the table. I'm not eating after 9pm. I'm exercising my ass off and planning my food. I'm being a good pixie.

I've encountered a problem though that I'm just going to have to work though. It's the not eating after 9pm thing. I don't like it much!!! The first night, Monday, I got home from cards and got into my nightie and fixed my snack. I sat out in the lanai and read a magazine and had my cup of milk, my WW cookie, and a cup of grapes. It was lovely. Came back into the house to watch 'Two and a Half Men' with the guys. I do adore that show. We were half way through the show when I realized that I had planned a WW ice cream sandwich for my snack also and I forgot to eat it! I was just heart broken!!!!!!! It was now after 9pm and it was lost to me forever! OK, so I could have it tomorrow, but I'd planned the points for it that night and now I couldn't have it. Damn and blast!!!!

I shall work on this. You bet your ass I'll be checking my food planner before 9PM from now on!

A new day has dawned

OK, so here it dawned dark and rainy. On the bright side, I woke up and that's always a good thing!

Today brings the first day of my next 30 day challenge. I've thought a lot about what I want it to entail and I think I've finalized it. I'm going with the old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', so I'm keeping last month's 3 items, and I'm going to add 2 new ones for this month.

So, drum roll if you please! Debby's 30 day challenge to herself is as follows!

1. Stay OP for 6 days a week
2. Exercise a minimum of 5 days a week, a minimum of 30 minutes each time
3. Plan food ahead
4. Do not eat in my recliner
5. Do not eat after 9PM (8PM on nights I don't play cards)

Sounds simple you say? Well, I think it's going to be very challenging.

I haven't eaten at the table since 2005. That's a lot of 'eating in my recliner' habit to break! I believe that when I want to eat at night (please notice that I didn't say 'When I'm hungry at night'), it's because I'm in the chair I eat in. I associate my recliner with food. OH SHIT! I JUST REALIZED I ATE MY BREAKFAST IN MY RECLINER! Talk about habit!!!!! OK, since I hadn't officially put my challenge in writing, I'm NOT counting that breach! Good grief, I told you this is going to be hard!

I love the park I live in. I play cards nearly every night. That means I have to eat dinner at 5PM so I always want, and really do need, a snack afterwards. I really want to get out of the habit of eating late at night and then going right to bed. So, this month, my snack will be consumed the minute I get home from cards and then that's it. I'm also going to try to keep it healthy and not comfort food. I'll save a fruit for at night. That should keep my tummy satisfied for the rest of the evening. If I want ice cream or popcorn etc. , I'll have it earlier in the day. What a concept, night time snacks in the afternoon when I'll have time to work them off! As it is now, I save several points for my night time snacking routine. It should make my food planning easier to not have to do that for sure!

Wish me luck people. If I complete this 30 day challenge, it'll definitely be the first time in my life I went 2 months being 'good'. I really want to do this for myself. It should let me see patterns in my weight loss and or gains. I tend to gain one certain week each month...well I think I do. This should show me if that's true or not. If I do find that's true, maybe I can start working on a way to help that week. Eat more points, eat less points, exercise more, exercise less....whatever.

Knowledge is power.

Last Day! C'est finis!

That's right boys and girls. Today is day 30 of my 30 day challenge. Wow what a boon this has been! Such a simple thing. Such a stupid thing. Why did it work? Who knows? Am I happy it did? Hell yes!

I read a Weight Watcher article about setting goals. I thought about it, and I did just that. They might be a multi billion quatrillion dollar business, but they do know their stuff.

I knew enough to make it reasonable, that's why I chose 30 days. I knew enough to not make it overwhelming, so I chose 3 things. I know my weakness, so I made that one of the things.

You're wondering what my weakness is? It's telling myself no. I'm not good at it. Not good at all. If I want it, I have it. Oh, I'll half-heartedly argue with myself. Now Debby, you know you don't REALLY want that bag of potato chips. You know you should have an apple. Apple my ass! If I want potato chips an apple certainly is NOT going to help!

I had a WW leader once that said, and I do quote here, "You have to want the pickle more than the potato chips." Yes, she was specifically talking to me. I looked at her like she was from another planet! I will never ever ever want a pickle instead of potato chips. They're not the same thing. I had an 'aha' moment a few years ago. A real head slapping, OMG, epiphany. She didn't mean I had to want the taste of the pickle over the taste of the potato chips, she meant I had to want to eat the pickle, eat what is better for me, a better choice, than to choose the potato chips! DOH! It took me about 20 years to figure that one out!

OK, so now let's apply that to the challenge. Bet you thought I forgot where I was going with this didn't you????? Nope, I didn't. If, every single time I want something, I give in to myself, I'll never learn to 'want the pickle'. I have to learn what it is to face a craving and defeat it. I have to do it over and over. Eventually, when the craving comes, I'll be able to 'want the pickle'.

I have never been able to fight myself when I really wanted something to eat. Never. I've been known to drive 25 miles to get a Whopper. When Taco Bell first opened, we didn't have one in our town. Next town over did! I have gotten up out of bed, dressed, gone to the store in the middle of the night for a candy bar. I have missed important parts of movies to get popcorn that when I went in I said I'd not have. Yep, when the feeling comes over me that I want something, an even stronger feeling comes over me letting me have it. This summer, for the very first time ever, I fought a craving. Read about it here if you'd like. I almost fainted! I hadn't done it since, obviously, as I gained 26.2 pounds this summer!

So my challenge had to include something about telling myself NO. Hence the 'Stay OP 6 days a week' part. I don't use my flex points during the week. I take one day each week and eat what I want. It's always been called my 'no rules day'. It works for me. Sometimes. In the past, that 1 no rules day often became 2 or 3 as, like I've said, I have a problem saying no to the princess! That's why my challenge said 6 days a week and not a full 30 days. If I could do this, it would be monumental. There's no way in 30 days I'm not going to want something that I can't have. If I can tell myself no, wow, what a boon!

There were 3 occasions in the past 30 days that I really, really, really, wanted something. The only thing that kept me from having it was my challenge to myself. That was it. Not knowing that I didn't want to gain more weight. Not knowing how hard it is on my psyche to have to lose weight again I've already lost. Not knowing that I really want to reach my goal. Nope, none of that. It was just that I wanted a clean 30 day record! Cowabunga dude! Have I made a discovery or what?????

My exercise routine was this.

Yep, that's right. I did nothing! I needed to incorporate exercise into my life, so that became number 2 on my challenge. I should have gone for baby steps, but I'm glad I didn't. I jumped right in with both feet so to speak. My challenge was to exercise a minimum of 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes a day. Man oh man did I do that. I didn't want to, but I did! Usually exceeding the amount required too!

Planning is the key to good weight loss I think. Write it down. Plain and simple. I can't wait until I'm hungry and then decide what to eat. That's a disaster waiting to happen. For me to succeed, I need to plan ahead. I need to plan my food for the day before I take my first bite. So, the 3rd thing on my list was to track my food. Plan, journal, whatever you call it. I can't tell you how many times that has helped me. I'm starving, what can I eat? Oh let me just see what I planned and have something off the list. Oh ya baby. Sometimes I'm so smart I amaze myself!

So, today is the last day of my challenge. I will have NO problem making it through the rest of tonight for sure. It's been a flying success in every way. For the full 30 days I accomplished all 3 of my goals. Wow do I feel great about myself!!! I mean really, really, really proud!

I'll be working tonight on the next one for sure. Look for the update tomorrow.

Why I love Weight Watchers/Day 30

Oh do click on that to make it larger!

Thank you to Ian for holding up the backdrop and to Daphne for the tea towel from Paris! That's my Mama's cast iron skillet, my favorite Piglet plate and my favorite hand painted juice glass. Eating is about the visual for me as well as the savoriness.

I had my coffee this morning and I was starving. I wanted sustenance. I didn't want puffy O's and yogurt. I wanted something that would satisfy me, something to stick to my ribs. WW allows me to do that!

I created this frittata. It's got a whole veg in it. It's got both of my healthy oils for the day in it. I had a sliced nectarine, one of my fruits, and a WW yogurt, one of my milks. That's a WW English muffin you see there topped with sugar free marmalade. A glass of Crystal Light tops off my feast. Can you say burrrrrrrrrrp? I spent 9 points on that meal, but look how many of my HG's I got in at breakfast! Not only that, I couldn't finish it all. So, now, I've got my lunch or snack or whatever I call what I eat next and the points are already counted!

How I did it.

3.5 ounces of raw potato grated = 1 point

2 teaspoons of olive oil = 2.5 points (both healthy oils for the day!)

1/8 cup grated onion = 0 points (I figure the onion and pepper = 1 of my veg for the day)

1/8 cup diced red bell pepper = 0 points

1/2 cup egg beaters = 1 point

4 slices Canadian bacon = 1 point

14 grams low fat feta cheese = .5 point

1 WW English muffin = 1 point (whole grain)

1 T sugar free marmalade = 0 points

1 sliced nectarine = 1 points (1 of my fruits for the day)

6 oz Weight Watchers peach yogurt = 1 point (one of my milks for the day)

I just love that Weight Watchers gives us the opportunity to satisfy our appetites. Most mornings I'm happy with oatmeal or cereal and yogurt. That wasn't going to cut it this morning and it didn't have to. Variety is indeed the spice of life.

I'll have to wait a while before exercising today for sure!