OT: Vote for my dogs

This is off topic but I wanted to post links to vote for my dogs. They are pics of them in their Halloween costumes for a Pet Costume contest at Disney Family. Pogo was our dog before Kosmo. He died in 2006 and we got Kosmo about 8 weeks later. It was lonely without a dog in the house. We couldn't find the Hotdog costume when we were invited to a Halloween party with our dogs so we had to buy a new costume. So Kosmo got to wear the new astronaut costume. He absolutely hated that costume. He wouldn't look at us when he had it on and he didn't like to walk. We only put it on long enough for pictures and the pet parade which lasted all of 5 minutes. We didn't "torture" him for too long.

http://family.go.com/dog-costume-contest/cute-and-cuddly/hotdog-pogo-900/



http://family.go.com/dog-costume-contest/cute-and-cuddly/kosmo-898/

This contest is running until the end of October and I believe you are able to vote once a day.
Thanks for your support!
~Heidi~

Sept. update

Still going along well. My weight was up 1/2 lb at weigh-in this week but I'm thinking mostly because of TOM than my eating habits. I didn't exercise as much because of it so I could easily see a gain again but I'm hoping that as TOM disappears and I make it back to the gym, I'll be back to my normal maintenance weight again. I have also been eating a little more junk that I should be. I was really craving chocolate last weekend and when my mom had left over brownies with a peanut butter & chocolate frosting from a church function, I had no problem taking them home with me. They were just what I wanted to curb the craving. So that may come into play too since I had at least 4 brownies earlier this week. YUM is all I can say to that!

Survived it all!

To say I survived the Labor Day weekend is an understatement. I think I did very well considering all the parties we had planned. I got through our first draft on Friday night with only 3 slices of pizza...2 plain and one with mushrooms (note that I did not have any of the meat lovers!) and 2 chocolate chip cookies. I don't know what it is about my new and improved lifestyle but now that I've been trying to maintain a healthy diet I actually crave the goodies that I never used to eat. Is it possible for your body to actually crave sweets? The only thing I can think of is "before" I started WW, I used to drink Pepsi like it was going out of style. Now it is rare to have any soda let alone Pepsi and I stick to my water and crystal light to go packets that I occassionally add to my water bottles. Maybe the HFCS in the pop was good enough to curb my sweet tooth. I'm not sure, but all I know is when I see brownies or chocolate chip cookies it takes everything I have not to take as much as I can hold!!

My next draft was on Sunday and I learned on Saturday that we wouldn't be having pizza. Hooray! My SIL made ham barbeques and was asking for the rest of the owners bring along something as well. There was this wonderful dish made with bow tie pasta, broccoli and chicken...not sure what it was but it was delicious. There were also plenty of dips that I avoided for the most part. I just had to "try" the buffalo cheese dip. It was a little spicy but perfect with a tortilla chip. I stuck to just 5 chips more out of worry for my IBS than my diet because of the spicy dip. I made an apple crisp with splenda's brown sugar blend and it was the perfect end.

Labor Day I didn't eat a whole lot. I ate cereal for breakfast with my family mid-morning and went to the gym shortly after. After we came home and had showers, we went to my parents for a picnic. The girls got to swim which was great because it was a hot day! Temps were in the low 90s. Mom was disappointed we weren't staying for dinner so she had prepared food for us to take home. She always has a pasta dish to complement the traditional picnic foods so she had penne already precooked as well as 2 jars of vodka sauce and pre-browned ground beef. Gotta love moms....lol. No matter how old you are they still want to take care of you.

After my parents, we went to our last stop for the day. A mutual friend was having a picnic. He's Danny's age but so far is still single and it appears he's going to stay that way for a while. He had a great BBQ with the standard foods of burgers and dogs but also a wide selection of desserts. I decided not to waste my calories on things I didn't want so I split a burger with Marisa and had fruit salad and a pudding dessert. What I really wanted was a grilled chicken breast that I knew my dad was making. Why is it that our taste buds are never happy with what is available at the time and we want something different? I talked with the others while Danny and the girls played volleyball. It was great having others playing with them so I was actually able to relax and enjoy myself. Living in a household of 4, in order to make teams fair I always have to play with them. I liked being able to sit out of the game for once and just relax.

Fantasy Football Draft = pizza & alcohol

Labor day weekend to most people equates the beginning of a 3-day weekend but for my family it's the start of football drafts and fantasy football. Danny & I are in 2 fantasy football leagues and the main source of food is pizza and beer...both are typically high calorie foods. My first draft is tonight and I'm planning to have eaten all my 5 servings of fruits/veggies before I go. Originally I had thought maybe I'd take some fruit with me but can you imagine all the guys looking and me like I'm a fruitcake. Hopefully this will fill my belly enough to stick to only 2 slices of pizza and NO alcohol at all. Beer typically doesn't tempt me because I've always been the fruity drink kind of girl but there have been drafts in the past that Mike's Hard Lemonade or other similar malt drinks have been available. I'm planning to take my water bottle with me...how will that look with all the beer bottles on the table...lol....and be good tonight. I love pizza but if I'm not hungry, I'll be good. Boy is this weekend going to be hard to stay OP!

Vacation

What is it about vacation that causes us to lose our heads and get off plan? Is it the many different food choices available? I doubt it because we have a lot of restaurants available back home too. Is it the ease and smell of boardwalk foods...maybe, but that's not much different than going to a carnival. I think it's just the idea of taking a vacation from everything. We all have so much stress in our daily lives...the family, our work, school, etc. that it feels good to not have to think about anything except having fun. I know that was the way I was this year. I didn't go overboard on the boardwalk with fried foods or pizza but I did eat out of my comfort zone with my regular meals. There were so many great meals that wouldn't have been as great if I didn't eat it. And you know what, I don't even feel guilty. I know last year I would have because I was still trying to lose but this year, I think I looked at it more like a challenge. If I eat THIS food and exercise THIS much, will I still maintain or will I gain weight. So far I've only gained 1 lb so I still consider it maintaining. I was down to 129 before I left so being back up to 130 is my normal weight. Will this all catch up with me after a week or will I be able to keep maintaining...only time will tell. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Maintenance isn't easy

Maintaining your weight isn't as easy as you may think. I know when I met my goal weight back in December of '07, I had a misconception that it would be easy. Boy was I wrong. My weight has fluctuated up and down so much in the months that followed that I didn't think I'd ever get it under control. But now, almost 8 months later, I think I finally know what I need to do to keep my weight down. Here are some things I've learned:

• I will never be able to stay the same weight indefinitely. Just because I'm a woman, my hormones cause my weight to yo-yo a couple of lbs each month. So I'm happy if I can keep my weight within 2 lbs of my "normal" weight.
• I can sway from my normal healthy foods 2x a week before I will notice a weight gain. That means I can have a not-so-healthy meal like pizza and breadsticks or I can have some tasty treats like chocolate chip cookies or brownies. Roughly this will add up to about 20+ extra points so it's similar to using my weekly flex points.
• My daily maintenance points without exercise need to be around 24 pts. Everybody's is different, so it takes a while to figure it out.
• If I exercise by going to the gym, I will usually earn 3-4 AP points that can be available if I want them. Sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't. It doesn't usually affect me either way.
• I need to drink at least 6 servings of water a day. The days I don't drink enough, I feel blah!
• I can go about my week without tracking my points or journaling my foods as long as I stick to following the 8 Good Healthy Guidelines. My food choices when I follow the GHG are exactly what I need in order to maintain my weight. It's when I sway from this that I start gaining again.

My weight loss

Well, I've been following Weight Watcher's now since April 23, 2007. I'm following the flex plan which means that I have a set number of points to use each day instead of the alternate option of core which I can eat whatever and however much I want from a list of core foods. There also are Activity Points and weekly Flex points to use but I won't go into all of that.

I think that the WW weight loss program is one of the easiest plans to follow. I was sceptical when I joined in April but my sister-in-law basically talked me into it telling me we'd do it together. We didn't sign up for the meetings but instead the online trial which ran for 3 months. Now the reason I was sceptical was the fact that my youngest sister had already tried following the WW plan. She would start losing but then for some reason or another quit. I never really asked her why because it always seems that she's trying some kind of diet. She's done Jenny Craig, the Atkins, No-Carb, South Beach and Weight Watchers. Now since it seems like she is always trying some diet or another, she really wasn't a good character for me to use as my guide for whether or not the Weight Watchers plan works.

I can't begin to tell you how happy I've been following this plan. In the past 13 years since my last pregnancy, I have been trying to lose weight...by joining aerobic/tae bo classes, using a treadmill, cutting back on eating but nothing has ever been successful. It was very discouraging when I would be attending these aerobic classes 4 days a week for almost a year and not even lose anything. Which is why I was so shocked that my first week following the WW plan to a "T" and I lost 4 lbs. The following week on the day of my weigh-in, I found I had lost another 3 lbs. Talk about a shock....losing 7 lbs in 2 weeks and I hadn't even started exercising other than taking the dog for the daily walk that I had been doing every day anyway for the last year. In addition to following WW, I also joined a weight loss website called sparkpeople.com (it's free by the way!). The friendship, motivation and support I have received on this site, helped keep me focused through my whole weight loss journey and continue to be there for me even now while I'm trying to maintain.


To the left is a before picture of me. I was at my highest weight here and a size 16 in January 2007 which after seeing these pictures prompted me to want to lose weight.

On the right, is a pictue of me in January 2008. I am 48 lbs lighter and in a size 8. I am so much happier here and feel better too.

I am finally at a healthy BMI and just feel so much better about myself and my self image. I reached my goal weight in December 2007 and overall I have lost 48 lbs. It's so exciting going shopping and buying a smaller size than I expected to be fitting in. I actually enjoy shopping now. I always used to dread it before because nothing ever fit right and if it did, it meant I was buying it in a bigger size. I hated it. So with the 48 lbs lost, I also have dropped 5 sizes (currently a size 6) which to me is the best thing to happen in the world!