Big Steps - Week Two Update

 

Well, this past weekend was Memorial Day weekend which meant vacation for the family! And what happens over vacation? Eating! And eat we did! From the photo above, we may have had a cocktail or two as well! And because it was a holiday weekend, actually a five day weekend for me, I enjoyed every minute of it.

 

I didn't pay attention to points all weekend and only felt slightly guilty. I blame it on being remote, and with zero internet access, to even try to log points. That's really not a good excuse because plain old pen and paper would have done the trick. I just ate, drank and played all weekend long!

 

I weighed myself this morning and I am up one pound. And that's okay! One pound is easy to lose and I'm actually proud of myself for only gaining that one pound. The site told me that weight gain was normal during the process and that I should review my week. What the site doesn't know is that my clothes fit. Clothes that I haven't worn in a couple of years and that's all that really matters! I'm wearing one of those pieces today and it feels good! I feel good!

 

It's a new day and a new week. I am back at it today. Low sugar oatmeal for breakfast (3 points). Tuna, veggies and fruit for lunch (3 points) and who knows what's for dinner! I have to hit the grocery store and will stock up on fresh goodness there. And I vow I won't be hungry when I do it!

 

So there you have it! I'll be back next week!



Big Steps - Week One Update

It has been one week since I started Weight Watchers and so far things are going pretty well. The hardest part has been figuring out points! Oh, and dieting! They arm you with some terrific tools. However, I have created some helpful cheat sheets, like a spread sheet of foods by catagory and their associated points, so I have something to reference when my computer isn't handy. I'm allowed 26 points a day and I haven't really found it all that hard to stay within them. I've actually been leaving some points on the table. Sometimes two, sometimes more. And, I've been hungrier on some days versus others, but I'm trying to really stick with this and not cheat.

 

Another great tool I've discovered, with the help of my friend Wendy, is their recipe builder. Since you can't literally calculate every single point, the recipe builder breaks down your meal on the points scale, and you can save the recipe if you were to make it again. For instance, Wendy provided me with a 1 Point Weight Watcher muffin years ago and I had lost the recipe for the umptenth time! Based on the new WW points system, we wondered if the muffins were still one point. With the recipe builder, we plugged in all the ingredients, changed our serving size to 24, and it calcutated that our previous one point muffin was now two! Super helpful and I use it all the time now.

 

I love that most, if not almost all, veggies and fruits are zero points! I can fill up on healthy snacks and not feel guilty for eating. Other snacks food are low in points as well. For instance, sugar free Jell-O is zero points! Add a teaspoon of Cool Whip and you have a one point dessert or snack! Add 2 tablespoons of Humus to your carrots or celery and you have a two point snack! A cup of air popped, plain popcorn is one point! All great snack foods that fill you up! That's the key. Fill up! They say you shouldn't be hungry on WW, and for most days, that's true.

 

I've been a lot more active this past week as well. I've taken a couple more walks and started the work on building/planting our garden. I've been lifting 40 pound bags of top soil, 16 pound bags of organic soil, digging, raking and planting for the better part of the weekend.  And I get to log all of those activity points and "cash" them in whenever I want. I'm thinking I might use them for the upcoming weekend! Vacations aren't always the best times to diet. Those extra points are going to come in handy!

 

And, as it turns out, the weight loss it taking place. The goal set by Weight Watchers, that I thought was eight pounds in a week, is actually eight pounds total. I'm down 2.5 pounds after week one! Taht might not sound like a lot, but according to my friend Wendy, the average weight loss in a week is two pounds. I'm off to a great start! Let's hope the momentum continues during the week and I continue to shed even through the holiday weekend!

Big Steps!

I know people say to take baby steps when you're first starting out with something new, but not this girl! I've never been that girl! Just ask my mom. I am a "go big or go home" kind of girl! I blogged about self image on Style My Way a couple of months ago and decided to finally take the reigns and do something about it. I mean, no one is going to lose the leftover baby weight but me, right? So, I signed up for Weight Watchers online yesterday. Yes, it was on May 13th. Yes, it was on the second week of May. Yes, I realize that if you are going to set a goal for yourself most people start it off at the beginning of a new month. Again, not this girl!! I also know you are never supposed to utter the words diet in public! One should never tell family and close friends that "I started a diet" because if you fail, they know you failed! However, going back to my forty before 40 post, look at numbers 13 and 14. I pretty much spelled it out!

Dieting is hard. Dieting sucks!! I know that on Weight Watchers they claim that you can still eat the foods you love, but that's not really the case! I love cupcakes, cookies, bread, milkshakes, frosting from the can, candy bars.....can I really eat all of those things? Yes, if I don't want to lose weight! Yes, if I eat them within moderation. Yes, if I stay within the points I'm given per day. But what it really boils down to is, no! I can't really eat those foods as often as I would like! I have to be choosy about when I actually eat them. Like when no one is looking or I lie about it on my tracking tool!

Another component of dieting is the dreaded exercise. For those of you who love to work out, I envy you. I hate it! I dread going to the gym, pulling out the workout clothes and getting on that treadmill or lifting those free weights. However, when all is said and done, I feel better afterward. It's just getting through it! I've made the cardio/motivational play list for my iPad. I read magazines or books will on the treadmill. It's just getting myself pumped to go! Yesterday, since my hubby picked up the peanut, I decided to hit the streets instead of the gym. The weather is too gorgeous right now to holed up in the gym. I put on shorts, the horror, threw on the old tennies and off I went. I walked the general route of our neighborhood and kept pretty a pretty good pace. Lots of hills, I went that way on purpose, and felt really good after I got home. I even slept well for the first time in months!

I'm sore today but it's a good sore. I haven't really pushed myself to walk like that in ages. Sure, I stroll around the zoo, Deanna Rose, the mall, but it's all at the pace of a two year old and that's just not cutting the mustard. Will I get back in the gym, maybe. Will I be more inclined to try and get out among nature, probably? Will I bring myself to charge up the controls to my Wii, yes! Because I have a goal! I need to stay focused. I'm not going reveal how many LBs I plan to lose. That's between me and my reflection in the mirror. Oh, and that little number on the scale that's screaming at me! But I will try my hardest to lose what I can however fast I can. Right now, my eight tracker is telling I need to lose eight pounds by next Monday. That is NOT going to happen because who loses eight pounds in less than a week? Celebrities, that's who!

So, it's out there! Like Harry Burns said, "Call the cops, it's out there!" I'm not brave enough, like Jessica of What I Wore, to photograph myself before and after. I honestly can't be that honest with you on my appearance. Vanity, self-conscious, scared. Call it what you will. I can't bring myself to go that far. I can tell you how I'm doing, tricks I've found, recipes I've tried and loved and how I'm feeling throughout the process! Until then....wish me luck!

Don't Quit Your Day Job!

You often hear this phrase thrown about when someone is singing and they're "a little pitchy, dog"! I keep toying with quitting my day job to find, well, another day job. The ultimate day job for me would be "stay at home mom" to McKinley but I can never not work. We have bills to pay, groceries to buy, automobiles to fuel....you know the drill. The issue I keep stumbling over is, I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. Actually, that's a lie. I do know what I want to do when I grow up, but a lot of those ideas just don't sound feasible. I alluded to a few of them in my last post, so I thought I would elaborate on them today.

A children's bookstore is the number one thing I would truly love to open! After I saw "You've Got Mail" I just knew I wanted to make that happen. I know exactly what I would name it, but won't reveal, as I don't want anyone stealing my store name! I can see shelves full of books that I read as a child and ones I read to McKinley today. I see week day and weekend storytelling. Children gathered around to hear small stories or pages of one to pique their curiosity and get them reading it on their own. I see craft projects, holiday decorating, milk and cookie snack days, and smiling faces all around me! Doesn't that just sound like heaven? The store wouldn't be located in one of Johnson County's strip malls, but a stand alone building that we've restored to our own likes and specifications. How I would love to makes this dream a reality!

I have truly enjoyed the art of baking lately and creating small treats for my family and friends. Some are homemade, some from a box, but all have some sort of touch that make it mine. I would specialize in a few things versus a large array of baked goods. I would want to make it a specialized bakery. A concentration of cupcakes, cookies and cakepops. Nothing too fancy or extreme, but instead treats that are big on taste. And style. No matter what I do, there has to be some level of style involved. You can't just deliver a product without a brand and my brand is all about making things stylish! Remember, I also have a personal style blog!  

If you don't follow Style My Way, then you may not know that I am an inspiring fashionista. What's a fashionista you might ask? Well, to me, a fashionista is someone who is "in the know" of all things fashion. We know design houses and their signature patterns or prints. We are constantly scouring fashion mags, blogs and websites. We eat, sleep and breath fashion. Because of this love of fashion, I would love to break into the business of styling. It could be on the low end to the high end, but I don't care! I just want to style people. I want to help them shop from their own closet, shop from their favorite retailers, shop for a specific event or for just their every day lives. Would I love to style celebrities? Hell ya! To get to work with the Creme de la Creme? To work with the fashion houses that I only see in magazines? That would be an amazing dream come true! Do I know who I would love to dress? Yes, I do! Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman, Tina Fey, Leighton Meester and Meryl Streep. I think that's a wide variety of women who run the gamut of television and film! It would really stretch my styling skills and challenge me personally and professionally. Just typing this out gets me so excited at the thought of actually doing something like this for a living!

In reality, my day job has me sitting here typing this from a cubicle. Someday, I might actually quit my day job for a new one. Maybe someday, my day job will be one of those listed above. A dreamer can dream, right?

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda...

At my high school graduation, our key speaker drove those three words home. He told all of us graduates to never be part of the shoulda, woulda, coulda club. You know the club. I shoulda never dated that guy because I can't get those years back! I woulda bought that dress but I don't really have a place to wear it! I coulda been a doctor but all that science got in the way! In other words, seize the day and make things happen in your life so that you don't have all those statements when you're older.

Well here comes the older part, and as hard as I've tried, I still have those statements! As I look at turning 40 in about six months, I've been thinking back on my life. Sure I've done some exciting things. I attended my first choice college, although I graduated from a different one. I can say that I had the small school and major university experience and I'm richer for it. I've traveled to fun cities around the country and I've been out of the country twice. I've moved four major times throughout my life and made some amazing friends and memories along the way. I lived on my own, on the Country Club Plaza which was something I always wanted to do, and experienced my independence. And, I got married and started a family with a great guy!

But there are things in my life that I wish I had done along the way. I wish I had been more goal oriented while I was in college. My only goal was to get out! I hated school. I loved the social aspect, but I hated the actual attending class. I graduated with a Theater Performance degree and loved the core classes. However, I struggled to get out of the required courses. My senior year, I remember sitting in the hall (and what I was wearing) waiting for my next class to start when my professor approached me and said "Why didn't you think of majoring in fashion merchandising?" That's a career? Those are courses that are offered? Attending a small liberal arts college in Southwest Virgina, they didn't offer fashion merchandising, so by the time I transferred to the University of Missouri I was knee deep in my theater degree. I didn't know that fashion anything was an option. My life coulda been so different in the fact that I coulda been in a career I love, doing something that matter to me. Even if it seems frivolous, people need clothes!

I consider myself, and my family, gypsies. Nomads. Moving from place to place and never really setting down roots. When my dad took a job with United Telephone in 1974, I'm sure he never thought he would live Tennessee. However, in 1982 we moved to Overland Park, KS and to us, it was the largest city in the world. We moved from Blountville, TN. In 2010, the total population for Blountville stood at a little over 3,000 so you can imagine the total in 1982. We stayed in Kansas until 1989 when we moved to Manassas, VA. A suburb 27 miles outside of Washington D.C., you can imagine how big the city was now! Then, in 1993, we relocated to Jefferson City, MO.... We won't go there. What I'm getting at is that we moved every four to six years and started a new beginning! I've been in Overland Park, my second time around, for 16 years and that's the longest I've lived anywhere! I feel stagnant from time to time, itching to move. I wish I had moved one more time. I wish I had moved to either NY or LA just to say I had. But I didn't and I feel like I coulda done something so cool. Even if I had found my way back here, which is possible, I coulda used one more move.

I look back on my life, okay my life as an adult up until now, and wish I had taken more risks. As I've gotten older, gotten married, had a baby, spent almost 14 years with one company, it becomes increasingly difficult to take risks. I have to be a responsible adult, but at times, I want to throw caution to the wind and just say "go for it"! Things I want to do with my life: 1) open a specialty boutique, 2) open a children's bookstore, 3) start a bakery, 4) start my jewelry company again and/or 5) become a stylist. Items 2, 3 and 5 stand out the most! But, I can't take those financial risks therefore leaving me saying, I woulda started these business if I were younger. I have so many ideas and I'm pretty sure I could be successful at them. My husband calls adult ADD!

The last thing on the list, for now, is world travel. No, I can't exactly travel the world, but I would really like to travel abroad. I had hoped to have a trip to Italy planned by the time I turned 40, but that is fallen by the wayside. I keep telling myself "one day" in hopes that I don't end up saying "I shoulda gone to Italy for my 40 birthday" when I'm 85! I haven't and won't give up on this one!

Am I alone in these thoughts? There have to be others out there who think about things like this from time to time. But maybe there aren't. Maybe there are people who are perfectly content with the lives they've led, and that's wonderful! I'm not unhappy with my life, not at all, but I do tend to daydream about what life coulda been if only I had take a leap of faith....