Monday, December 28, 2009

Wii, Wii, Wii all the way home!

Well, I am still loving the Wii. So much so, that it is almost a battle around my house to get time on it. My husband wants to Wii. My daughter only wants to Wii when I want to Wii, and so it is a struggle to Wii around here.

I did go out and buy myself a new game, The Biggest Loser. Has anyone tried it? I paid $40 for it at GameStop and to be honest, I'm not terribly impressed. It is very serious and the trainers say the same thing over and over again. I get the repetition from the Fit Plus game that I paid $20 for, so I guess I was hoping for something better from Biggest Loser. Maybe I haven't played it enough, but if it doesn't improve, I'm going to be putting it up on craigslist soon.

What are your favorite Wii games?

Friday, December 25, 2009

Starting Over Again!

I quit Weight Watchers!  Yup! I lost 50 pounds and quit yesterday. Yup, I have over 100 more pounds that I need to lose, but I quit. Nope, I didn't cancel my membership and I didn't tell my leader that I was quitting, but I quit.

The good news is....I'm starting over today! I think when a person has over 25lbs to lose that is what they need to do. They need to reach a goal and celebrate their success. Tell themselves, "WooHoo! You did it, now you can quit!" Then start back up the next day, knowing that they succeeded at losing 25 lbs before and they can do it again!

When I look at my weight and think about the monumental task at hand, I can't help but be frustrated. How can I possibly lose a total of 189 lbs...and that will just get me to #150. Which while that is in the "healthy BMI range" and will qualify me for Lifetime membership, it is at the upper levels of the range. I can tell myself, "WooHoo! You have lost 50lbs on WW and a total of 79lbs!" But there is always a "but". But you need to lose 110 more! But you still aren't there yet. But you have never been below 180 lbs since puberty!

I'm tired of the Buts and I'm tired of my butt, but that is off topic....So, I quit!

And I am restarting again; focusing on the next 8lbs which will be another 10% off and ultimately the next 25lbs!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Yay!!! 50 lbs!!!!

I hit it on the dot!!! 50lbs! Gone!!! WooHoo!!!

The subject of our meeting was toot your own horn, so I'm tooting!!! I'm also wearing my 25lb ring/weight thing and 50lb. ring/weight thing on a necklace. Too much??? I don't know....But they sure are pretty!!!

We had a great meeting today. We had a new leader who was great only to find out that she won't be with us in the new year due to childcare conflicts. So, we will have to break in another person in January.

The highlight of the day came from my 3 year old who attended the meeting with me. She was telling her aunt about her day and was asked what the WW meeting was about. She said, "I don't know, but they talked about their toots." LOL

Friday, December 18, 2009

WoooHooo for the Wii

Our family decided to get a group present this year! We bought a Wii with the Wii fit. My daughter and I brought it home and with my husband's permission, we wrapped it really pretty and put it under the tree... Ok, so we opened it right up and got to playing it. We had to test it out right?

I will admit that when these came out, I was very skeptical. I mean who would imagine burning any calories playing a video game. I am or was VERY anti-video game. Who has time to sit around and play games? Not me! I'm too fidgety to do all that. The Wii is different people would tell me. Yeah, right! Now, I'm one of those Wii believers!

I love it! Between the four of us, we Wiied for over 6 hours! I did yoga, strength training, aerobics, balance exercises, bowled, played golf and tennis. It was great! I also tried out the boxing. That sure felt good too! I'm going to have to remember that when I get stressed!

So, tell me...do any of you have a Wii? What are your favorite games? Do you work up a sweat on it?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Just 1.2 lbs to go!!! (until I get my 50lb weight for WW's)

WooHoo! Today was a great weigh in day! I lost 2.2lbs and realized that I am 1.2lbs from my WW's 50 lb weight. Can I do that this week??? I think so. I'm going into this week totally positive about it. I'm going to focus on activity and counting my points this week and hope for the best! What a great Christmas present to myself a 50lb. weight would be!

Thinking about this week coming up, I only foresee one challenge. We are having a Christmas program at church Sunday morning in which the staff serve up cookies and punch to the congregation afterward.  I did volunteer to make hot cocoa and punch instead of baking cookies this year. I really don't need to spend several hours in the kitchen baking cookies. I am also going to make fresh mozzarella and bring crackers.

How is everyone else doing? 

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

My Quest for More Veggies!


First off, I don't get paid or anything for posts like this one. If I ever do, I will say that it is.

Rouse's, our local grocery store, had a sale on Dole salad kits this week. Complete salads for $1. The points range from 3-4 points per serving. Each bag has 3.5 servings. I'm wondering who is going to eat the .5 of a serving? Hmmmm



Photo by Flickr user VeganWarrior                Anyway, they have several different flavors to choose from. I picked up the Caesar, Asian, Autumn Splendor and Hearty Italian. I have not tried the Asian yet, but hope to soon. Here are my reviews on the others:

The Caesar was good. The shavings of Parmesan and Romano cheese were HUGE! Some of them were over 3 square inches. The croutons were tasty, but the dressing had too much vinegar for my taste.

The Hearty Italian was pretty good. I like the cubes of cheese and salami. The dressing fell short for me again. I am not a wine drinker and don't like super yeasty tastes, so this dressing was deeply offensive to my palate. I ended up making my own Balsamic vinaigrette dressing and using that for my salad.

The final salad was the Autumn Splendor which isn't listed on their website. It contains lettuce, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, croutons and a pumpkin vinaigrette. This one is a home run! I loved it! From start to finish, it was perfectly balanced and just what I wanted to go with my vegetable soup. I only hope that this isn't a seasonal salad, because I will be very disappointed in the springtime.

Dole has a whole line of these salads out that I can't wait to try.  I hope to find the Winter Jubilee in my grocery store soon. I am a huge blue cheese fan.

Each of the salads also come with this funny little packet of seasonings. Although I haven't done a comparison all together, they all seem to be the same thing. They do help the bits of salad that lack dressing. I love that all the pieces are in separate little pouches, so I can mix and match what I want on the salad. It is very convenient.

One of the things that is really annoying to me is that the nutrition label lists the nutritional information as all one thing. Since I tossed the salad dressing on two of these in favor of my homemade dressing, I had a huge debate as to how many points each of the other components were. Even on the pumpkin dressing that I loved, I didn't consume a whole serving each time I ate it, because I had plenty of leftovers. If they don't want to use up label space with the nutritional info for each of the components, they could at least put it on their site, which is another one of my issues. While I understand that they are trying to be cutting edge with their site and make fruits and vegetables seem cool, their site sucks! We have the highest DSL speed offered, but their site drags. I click, I wait for the animated lady to look at what I'm doing. Just give me the info already! I can't imagine visiting their site on my parent's cable modem or my sister's DSL light.

My plan for the month is to eat a salad and/or vegetable soup for one meal every day to help account for those holiday meals where the calorie counts are stacked against my weight loss efforts.Anyway, what are you doing to keep your holiday plans from sabotaging your weight loss plans?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

December 2009

Here is a new progress photo! Watch the slide show at the top for all of my progress photos

A Thanksgiving Gain...1.6 pounds

I knew I was in for a gain this week even before I stepped on the scale this morning. Last week, I lost 2.6 lbs, so I just knew that this week was going to be bad. It always seems to happen that way.

So, was it self-fulfilling prophesy? or the simple facts of knowing how my body works? I'm not sure, but I am up 1.6 lbs. this week. What is strange is that I no longer have the defeatist attitude about it that I once did. A month ago, I would have been ready to throw in the towel and give up. I mean really, Lori, you have been over 275 lbs. your entire adult life. How can you ever expect to lose weight? Who are you kidding? Besides you are comfortable here at 260ish...let's just throw in the towel, save the $40 bucks a month and spend it on chocolate.  Anyone else have that little voice in your head? Maybe it is just me, but I know that I must silence that voice or I will end up back at 339 or more!

Well, this gain is only temporary. It will be gone next week and hopefully, it will take some of its friends with it. I am (with the gain) 3 pounds away from a new WW milestone of 50 lbs. So, off we go to see if I can do it this week!

My tip for the week...eat more veggies!!! Looking back at my meals this past week, my fruit and vegetable servings were seriously lacking. So during our meeting today, we talked about food finds and one of the ladies talked about these Green Giant Just for One vegetables. They are zero or 1 point servings size portions. They steam in the microwave in their little package for 2 minutes. It is a great little snack or an addition to a frozen dinner. I bought the Cauliflower & Cheese Sauce, Broccoli & Cheese Sauce and Broccoli, Carrots & Italian Seasoning today at Wal-Mart. At $2.98 for a 4 pack, I'm not thrilled with the price. I tried the Cauliflower & Cheese Sauce today and seasoned it with a little Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning. I must admit that it was very tasty, and I'm not a huge fan of cauliflower either. For the points, they sure didn't skimp on the cheese sauce.

Well, now I'm off to check out everyone else's blog and see how we are all doing! Have a great Wednesday!