Extreme Makeover--Me Edition Weekly Update #3

This week started off pretty good. Although I didn't go to the gym on Thursday, (didn't want to over do it being that I worked out 6x last week) I did however go back on Friday morning and ended up working out 4x this week. My goal is to exercise four days every week. (The picture is of Kyle doing the Denise Austin exercise DVD. He was using soup cans instead of dumbbells. :-))

Then the weekend rolled around. I ate...and I ate...and then I ate some more all day Saturday. I went over my points. Thank goodness for the weekly bonus points. Weight Watchers gives you 35 extra points which they call Weekly Points Allowance. You can choose to use a little every day, eat them all in one day or not use any at all. Of course some portion or all of them are used throughout the course of my week. Every week. 6 chocolate oreos were calling my name on Saturday night. That's 9 points. Yes, I said 9 points!!! I'm only allowed 18 points a day. Luckily I earned some activity points for cleaning the house. With that being said, I still went over my points by 10.

On Sunday, Kyle and Brady had a birthday party to attend. I started out drinking a small glass of wine and only had a couple of sips before it got dumped down the drain. If Saturday wasn't such a free-for-all, I would have continued to enjoy the wine. I felt as if I was already behind the eight ball as it was. Next I started to have some pretzels and Heluva Good French Onion dip. Has anyone ever tried this dip before?? It's one of my favorites. It was so good. I had to step away from the buffet table without having a piece of pizza or ice cream cake. I ended up going over my points by 4 on Sunday. Not bad but didn't have a good feeling about staying on track and eating healthy all weekend.

This morning I awoke at 4:55 a.m. and immediately thought it was too late to go to the gym. I still had to get dressed and drive 11-12 minutes away and didn't want to be rushing the whole time unable to concentrate. So what did I do? I grabbed my workout ball and 5 lb. dumbbell weights from my closet and ran downstairs to slip the Denise Austin exercise video into the DVD player. The old me would've rolled over and gone back to sleep. The new me seized the moment and got up out of bed and started moving.

Sweet Amber sent me an e-mail last night. I left her a comment on her blog stating I was scared of the weigh-in today as this week didn't go so well. She said I shouldn't feel that I had to share the actual number from the weigh-in. Just the progress in general. Focus on the good. I knew she was trying to take the pressure off of me. Once she said that, it actually gave me the courage to want to share. Whether it be a gain or loss. Luckily it just happened to be a loss this week. Thank you Amber. I appreciate your kind words. :-) Having said all of that, I really need to be accountable. It's also my goal to keep it real on my blog. Not only to see the good, but the bad and the ugly as well.

Amber's question of the week is "How are you keeping track of your achievements and how do you reward yourself when you achieve a goal?"

The Weight Watchers card that accompanies me each week to my weigh-in is how I keep track of my achievements. It tells me what weight I started at from the very beginning and where I'm at today. It keeps a weekly tally as well as how much weight I've lost (or gained). The Weight Watchers online website does the same thing but also records all of the activity points. It's a great way to keep encouraging yourself to look at how far you've actually come. I tend to forget.

As far as rewarding myself, I think I've done way too much rewarding and not enough cutting back if you know what I mean. Last time I was doing Weight Watchers, I used to come home and have a "free" day so to speak. This meant I could eat whatever I wanted within reason all day on Wednesdays and not be held accountable. That didn't work very well for me as I'm sure you can imagine. Isn't that the very thing that got me here in the first place? LOL This time around with WW I haven't been rewarding myself weekly. My plan is to buy some new summer capris/pants when I've met my goal weight loss. I'm ok with this. I have pep talks with myself a lot as well. I don't need to reward myself every step of the way.

By the way, remember those WW candies from last week? The cherry ones weren't that good, they were kind of tasteless and simply just stuck to my teeth. The cappuccino cream was pretty good. Not sure how much they helped but I would buy them again.

On a completely different subject, I put on my little sweatshirt jacket this morning and started to zip it up when I suddenly felt something. I knew exactly what it was. Can anyone guess what I found? If you said my Driver's License and Am Ex card you would be correct. Surprise surprise. Apparently that was the jacket that was worn to Blockbuster last week and not the one I wore to the gym the very next morning. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. Well at least no one stole my credit card number. That's a good thing. Before children this never would have happened. I was so on the ball. Even after the second child was born. It's that third one that pushed me right over the edge. God I love Peyton dearly and wouldn't change having her for anything but the one thing I lost is my memory. Oh how I miss it.

Off to the school bus and Weight Watchers. I'll be back later to let you know how it went. Wish me luck!!

***Edited to add

Good news. Somehow I ended up losing .2 lbs. this week. Needless to say I was so relieved. At first glance, I wasn't impressed with this teeny tiny amount of weight. Then I thought to myself that a) it's a loss when it should have been a gain and b) it's comparable to losing almost one whole stick of butter...on my thighs and bum. :-) I'm a very visual person and when it's put to me that way, it makes me happy and proud all at once. Didn't I say the same thing last week? I wish I could realize this as my first thought at the weigh-in and not as an afterthought.

I hope all of you had a good week. If not, we just have to pick ourselves back up and start again. Good luck to everyone!!

Much love from NJ,