goal #1 not met

Doh.  Backslid a lot a month ago, and I am now slogging back towards that goal #1 weight.  I'm less than a pound away, but man, it is truly frustrating to take one step forward and then two steps back.  Here's hoping the rest of summer sees the scale go in the right direction!

holding steady

OK, still holding steady.  Up a pound and half from the lowest weight I was at a month ago, but hey, still below that goal #1 weight so I'll take it.  It's frustrating to see the scale stall, but at least I'm not in a big freefall weight-wise.  I did gain several more pounds last month with out of town guests staying with us, but I've lost those thankfully.  Gotta get that weight gone, my friends!

backsliding

Awww, I knew this would happen, but wish it didn't happen so soon.  I gained this week, but I'm still below that goal #1 weight, thankfully.  Going to be a weight-loss-struggle for the next two weeks, but I'm hoping to just get back down that 1.9 pounds that I gained.  Wish me luck! ;)

Goal #1 met!

Woohoo!  I have accomplished goal #1 and am on my way to goal #2!  Huzzah!  Yippee!  Whee! ;)

Goal 1: 16 pounds gone - weight 1 week after delivering baby -- DONE!  
Goal 2: 31 pounds gone - weight before getting pregnant 
Goal 3: 40 pounds gone 
Goal 4: 50 pounds gone
Goal 5: 60 pounds gone 
Goal 6: 70 pounds gone 
Goal 7: 80 pounds gone 
Goal 8: 90 pounds gone 
Goal 9: 100 pounds gone 
Goal 10: 103 pounds gone 

losing it!

Woo, today was an exciting day on the scale - I'm within a pound of goal #1!  Still struggling with the constant hunger, and now a persistent case of heartburn... but I know I need to stay the course and keep chipping away at this huge weight gain to get off my shoulders (and hips...)

slow going

soooo... trying to stay positive, and overall the scale is still going down, so that's good.  But wow, it's slow!  And it does bounce up every now and then too.  According to myfitnesspal.com I'm eating enough calories where I should be losing 2 pounds a week, but I'm not losing that much.  And obviously, that's very frustrating!  At some point, it's gotta start getting to that rate!  Please? ;)

keepin' on

I've slowed on the cookies, trying to get my gastrointestinal issues all resolved.  My weight's been bouncing up and down a pound or two, and I'd really prefer for it just to be going down ;)  I ended up having spontaneous dim sum yesterday so that threw things off a little, but it's more important for my sanity to go out to lunch with friends than to stay home and eat a cookie. ;)

I am happy for the extra daylight in the evenings and hopefully will be going for a walk more often now!

cookie diet slowing down

Hrm, the gastrointestinal issues continue, so today there are no oatmeal raisin cookies on the horizon. And I just ate a cup of yogurt.  Whaaa?  ;)

So we'll see how things go.  I made it to the gym last night and did my weights circuit... and only lost 0.1 pounds today.  Oy. ;)

I'm going to get a body composition test tomorrow, and will be curious to see how the numbers compare to my first one back in August.  I'm only down about five pounds from that last one, so it will be interesting!  I *really* want to get it done again in a month from now but I don't know if I'll be able to arrange that.

Oh!  I did have one of the chocolate chip cookies a little warmed up today - I had left it in my car in a little plastic gladware thing, and the icing had melted a little.  It was tastier!

Review: Smart for Life Chocolate Chip Cookies

After eating seven packages of these on the Smart for Life "cookie diet", let's do the official review.  Here are the "Chocolate Chip Cookies" - they come six to a package, since you're directed to eat six cookies each day (and a protein and veggie dinner).  

the tray of six cookies, straight out of the package

all six cookies laid out

They're okay, at best.  I do like these more than the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies but it's a far stretch to call these cookies. They're definitely more like mini-muffins, but very dense.  They're somewhat dry - not as dry as the Oatmeal Raisin variety, but definitely drier than most cookies or muffins.  The white icing is okay enough.  The highlight of these are the chocolate chips - but some cookies have only one and some have six!  If they put the chips on top to help make sure they were distributed equally, it would be so much better.  

I am losing weight while eating these, but full disclosure - I'm also having some gastrointestinal issues too.  Ugh.

Nutrition Facts for 1 cookie
Calories 100
Total Fat 3.5 g
Saturated Fat 1.5 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 135 mg
Carb 9 g
Fiber 2 g
Sugars 3 g
Protein 6 g

good and bad

Good: I'm still losing weight!  Yippee!  Four pounds away from my first goal!  Yeehaw!

Bad: I am having a lot of.. erm... gastrointestinal distress?  I've looked at the ingredients in the cookies, and there's nothing explicitly in them that I know I have an intolerance for, but something is amiss.  There's the unfortunate "natural flavor" ingredient in each of them, which could be throwing my intestines for a loop.  I don't know what it is, but I think tomorrow and Friday, I'll only have the chocolate chip cookies to try to narrow this down between the two varieties.  I do have an intolerance for ginger - which is not explicitly listed in either cookie - but perhaps it's in the oatmeal raisin cookie.  Nutmeg and cinnamon are listed in there, and ginger often accompanies those.  So, we'll see.

I think this might be nudging me away from the cookies more quickly than I had intended.  I really wanted to hit my first two goals and be at my pre-pregnancy weight before I moved off the cookie diet.  But clearly, if there's something in these cookies that is causing this GI problem, then I need to stop them much earlier.

Review: Smart for Life Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

After over a week on the Smart for Life "cookie diet", it's time to do an official review.  Here are the "Oatmeal Raisin Cookies" - they come six to a package, since you're directed to eat six cookies each day (and a protein and veggie dinner).  

a package of cookies with a tape measure for size reference

each of the six cookies on one plate - note the big range in appearance.

So... how do they taste?  Well, they're not horrible but I wouldn't call them good.  I wish there were more raisins - I have had at least three cookies with one only raisin in each of them.  When this is all you're eating until dinner, you cherish each raisin. ;)  Despite the variation in size, they all weigh within 10% of each other (yep, I weighed each of them individually).  There's some spice cake flavor in these - with nutmeg, cinnamon and "natural flavor" listed in the ingredients.  They are a bit dry, and you definitely need to drink a lot of water with them.

I dislike these a little more than I dislike the chocolate chip cookies - but they are working to help me lose weight, so I don't truly despise them yet.

Nutrition Facts for 1 cookie
Calories 110
Total Fat 4 g
Saturated Fat 1 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 105 mg
Carb 10 g
Fiber 2 g
Sugars 3 g
Protein 6 g

still cookie-ing, but disappointing weigh in

Ahhh, I knew this day would come but I didn't think it would be day 8 of the cookie diet!  Yes, today, I weighed myself and I had a half-pound gain from yesterday.  I poured over my food diary from yesterday, and the only thing that I can think of is salt - last night I used too much salt accidentally when roasting cauliflower.  But I was in my calorie range according to myfitnesspal (did I mention I'm using that all the time now too?  I find it much easier to use than my prior food tracking web site sparkpeople.com and myfitnesspal has a free app!).  So... we will see what happens on the scale tomorrow.  I am not giving up hope on this, but I am definitely feeling a bit burnt out for sure.

Smartforlife (the cookie doc's company) says to call them for support - and I did call them today, and it wasn't very supportive. ;)  The guy just told me to drink more water and make sure to eat the cookies every two hours.  Oh, and I can snack on celery if I want.  Woo.  I am hungry almost all the damn time - including right now, when I just finished a cookie 10 minutes ago!  I am drinking a ton of water, and... yeah.  I am definitely not enjoying this, but I know it's going to suck for a couple of months at least ;)

cookie diet, day 6

six pounds to go to my first goal!  I worked out yesterday and oh my gosh, I am ridiculously sore today - even brushing my teeth this morning educated me that perhaps I did too much on the triceps machine ;)

Last night, I ended up skipping a cookie because we were out in the evening before dinner, and this morning I missed one again while we were out.  Surprisingly, I've remember to bring a cookie with me if it's just me and child, but when my husband's with us, I keep forgetting!  Doh.  These flippin' cookies are so expensive so I'm definitely not throwing out the cookies!  So today's an oatmeal cookie day but I did swap one with yesterday's leftover chocolate chip cookie.  So wild. ;)  I'm probably going to have two leftover then from today (since I missed the mid-morning one), so I think things are going to get mixed up soon. :D

I think I handled a potentially "dangerous" situation well today.  I've been craving sushi - and my son LOVES sushi and asks for it all the time.  So today, I decided we could get some.  I ordered take-out, so we wouldn't be tempted to get more than originally ordered.  Our favorite sushi place does incredible bento boxes, so we got two, to-go.  One was chicken teriyaki (sauce on the side), salmon shioyaki (no sauce, it's just grilled) and sashimi (which is just raw fish, no rice).  The second was more chicken teriyaki, more sashimi and chicken katsu (fried - husband's favorite).  Each box comes with a salad, miso soup, rice, and four pieces of California roll.  It's a ton of food.  Awesome. :)  So I ate my salad (no dressing), three pieces of tuna sashimi and five pieces of salmon sashimi, and one piece of California roll.  No soy sauce.  I had a sip of miso but it was very salty to me so I skipped the rest.  I smeared a tiny bit wasabi on each piece of fish, and I did have a couple bites of the chicken teriyaki without sauce.  I saved the salmon shioyaki for dinner.

So... overall, pretty good.  I would've preferred nigiri (raw fish over rice), and rolls (usually I like spicy tuna - which has some mayo in there - and the shrimp tempura!), but man, that's a lot of damn calories.  So I think this met some of my sushi craving and hopefully didn't completely derail my diet.  I did make some "sushi" for my son (sashimi over rice, pseudo-nigiri-style!)

Still losing weight and that's really, really motivating.  Wish I could fast forward a month or two though!  Can't I just wake up 30 pounds lighter and promise that I'll still diet? ;)  I know, I know... it took 5 years to gain this weight, it's going to take more than a few weeks to lose it...

Goals, revisited

So.  Goals.  I'm frankly embarrassed and disheartened because I've set so many goals over the past decade and have failed 'em all by this point (even if I did meet them at that time).  But I need to let go of that guilt and move forward.  So here we go:

Goal 1: 16 pounds gone - weight 1 week after delivering baby 
Goal 2: 31 pounds gone - weight before getting pregnant 
Goal 3: 40 pounds gone 
Goal 4: 50 pounds gone 
Goal 5: 60 pounds gone 
Goal 6: 70 pounds gone 
Goal 7: 80 pounds gone 
Goal 8: 90 pounds gone 
Goal 9: 100 pounds gone 
Goal 10: 103 pounds gone 

As of right now, I'm halfway to goal #1.  I'm also going to revise the sidebar on here where I was roughly keeping track of my weight loss.  Yes, I had lost 90 pounds... but dammit, I gained 70 of that back (including during the pregnancy).  So, now I'm starting with that weight right before I gave birth (well, after my water broke!).  Surprisingly, I lost 16 pounds within a week of giving birth, and I remember thinking "oh thank goodness, I'm going to lose this pregnancy weight without years of struggles...".  Well, sadly, that didn't happen.  My pelvis/hip issue that arose during pregnancy (and worsened during delivery) really put a damper on things, and...

ok enough excuses.  Let's lose the damn weight already! ;)

cookie diet, day four

Still chugging along... second day of the oatmeal raisin cookies.  The shine is definitely wearing off, but I'm getting results to chugging along I go!  Oy ;)  I did have some intense abdominal cramps this morning two hours before my alarm went off, but not sure if it's related to the cookies.  I'm hungry almost all the damn time, but I need to get the weight off and frankly, I've been indulging way too much the past 3 years.  I need to get in more exercise too, but... baby steps! ;)

cookie diet, day two

In the midst of day two on the cookie diet and doing okay, but I'm not following it to the letter unfortunately.  It's nearly impossible to do this strictly while raising a toddler.  I have to feed him 3 meals and a snack (plus at least one meal for my husband!), and it's too hard.  So last night, I made ground turkey in tomato sauce with whole wheat pasta.  I gave myself a double portion of the sauce (which was sugar-free no-salt-added) and none of the pasta.  But I did have a couple of grapes and a strawberry at lunch.  And today I had an ounce of cheese with lunch too.  I'm so wild. ;)  

Today I'm eating the oatmeal raisin cookies for the first time.  They're not bad... not as good as the chocolate chip cookies, but still edible.  I was out when I needed to eat one of them, but had brought it with me and ate it in the car while driving to some errands.  Nice that it's portable!

Oh, and today I did start off with a small protein shake (70 calories for 13 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar) before I ate my first cookie.  Not sure if it helped a lot, but right now I'm not rocking a huge headache so that's good (yesterday I did get a headache after I posted here).  

So the dinners seem like a challenge - how to prepare proteins that the whole family will enjoy with me not adding in any carbs for myself. ;)  I bought pork loin and a turkey breast and more ground turkey today, not sure which I'm cooking for dinner tonight yet.  None of them are particularly exciting, especially on their own! ;)  

I'm not going to focus extensively on the numbers on the scale, but instead look at the trend.  Yes, I had a nice weight loss this morning, but I'm still above where I was a week ago (before my birthday...) and Sunday night I overate at an Oscars party, so a weight loss this morning was to be expected. ;)  Hopefully the scale will continue to nudge down!

Cookie diet, day one

Ahhhh, here we go again.  Weight is way up, and I'm just struggling so hard to lose the weight and finding it difficult to get into it.

So, I feel like I need to do something "drastic" - and I'm going on the "cookie diet".  I bought a bunch of the Smart For Life cookies from Costco and today, it begins!

(first pet peeve: that photo is from their web site, and shows seven cookies in that pack, but there are only six!)

Basically, you're supposed to eat one cookie every two hours, skipping breakfast and lunch, and then eat 10-12 ounces of lean protein and 5 cups of veggies for dinner.  And drink a ton of water with each cookie.

Here are the stats for the chocolate chip cookies that I'm eating today:

Nutrition Facts for 1 cookie
Calories 100
Total Fat 3.5 g
Saturated Fat 1.5 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 135 mg
Carb 9 g
Fiber 2 g
Sugars 3 g
Protein 6 g

OK, so multiply that times six, and you're eating 600 calories, 12 grams of fiber and 36 grams of protein. Not enough!  The diet guidelines do say that you can eat some of the 10-12 ounces of protein at lunch if you wish, so I did have 2 ounces at lunch.  Should've had more.  I think I also need to start off with a protein shake as well - I'm used to more protein during the day, and I think not having as much is definitely having an impact on me (hello, headache!).  So I'll adjust for that tomorrow (and eat maybe 3-4 ounces of protein at lunch).  I am concerned about the fiber too - the guidelines explicitly forbid beans, which is a typical great source of fiber (and protein).  I usually get a bunch from fruit, and that too is forbidden because of the sugar content.  I see much spinach in my future.

My initial review of the chocolate chip cookie is that it isn't too bad.  There are just a couple of chips in each cookie (I only found one in my last cookie, sadly) - but these aren't bad at all.  I wouldn't go out of my way to eat these normally, and I wouldn't serve them to a guest at a party, but I'm not stabbing myself yet at having to eat these.  I've read that they're better if you warm them up for 10 seconds in the microwave, but I haven't tried that yet.  Honestly, since they're okay at room temp for me right now, I'm saving the warming-up-trick for when I inevitably get tired of them. ;)

So here we go.  Wish me luck, and willpower ;)

Why is there tilapia in my Muller fruitup yogurt?

Eating yogurt for a snack tonight, I looked at the ingredients and nearly spit it out.

Why on earth is there TILAPIA in my yogurt?!

I searched on their site and they do have a FAQ about it:

Why is there tilapia in FrütUp?
We use kosher gelatin from tilapia to maintain the light and airy texture of the fruit mousse.

Seriously, weird.  This is what I get for trying something different (and it wasn't very tasty either!)

up and down, mostly up

So, I have made it to the gym a couple times a week this month, which is good.  It's not having a major impact on my weight yet, but I have to hope that eventually it will.

But my weight is really depressing me these days, especially since I'm coming up on a couple of milestones on my calendar - 10 years since I got married, and 5 years since my lowest weight.

I was curious, so I went through and found my weight over the past 15 years or so, and whipped up a little graph:

The horizontal lines mark every 20 pounds.  First arrow is my wedding.  Approximately 5 years later, I was at my lowest weight (and yes, I gained about 20 pounds in the first two years of wedded bliss).  Second arrow is when I got pregnant.  Third arrow is when I gave birth.  It's a little hard to tell from this graph, but I'm about 5 pounds less now than when I got married.  And I *hate* how I look in my wedding photos.  

So, that's a pretty sobering graph.  

I also got another set of numbers crunched - after a 4 hour food and water (?!) fast on Sunday, I got measured on one of the "in body" body composition machines.  (FYI: 4 hour food fast, no problems - but 4 hours without water was hell and I had a terrible headache all day, even after I rehydrated.)  The results were really miserable.  I tried to convince myself it's just the "before" picture, but damn, it's hard to swallow.

But I did work out after that, doing a full set on the weights circuit plus some kettle bell work, and on Tuesday I did 45 min on a bike (even though my legs were still mad after that kettle bell work!), and yesterday I did an aqua aerobics class (which was great for the stretching actually - plus I did get my heart rate up a few times).  Tomorrow is another aqua class.  Will do the weights again Saturday or Sunday.  And I'm trying to eat healthier, but it's an on-going struggle.  

sore

Sorry for the radio silence yet again.  Amazingly, my weight is staying roughly the same, despite the lack of dieting and exercise.  It's still much higher than it should be, but at least it's not getting worse?

I joined a gym on Friday, mostly for activities for my son, but I'm really hoping that I'll actually get to go work out on my own as well.  Did a water aerobics class and it was great.  I also did a short circuit on a few of the weight machines, so I'm sore today. ;)  It's a good sore though, and one that I haven't had in several years.  I'm going to meet with one of the trainers again on Sunday to get set up on all of the weight machines to do full circuits.

Baby steps, so to speak ;)