Well, that's a surprise

Hey all!

So I've been focused on eating a little better and exercising more for about seven weeks now.  I'm down about 8-10 pounds.  I lost that bit of weight I gained back during the "blizzard," and am trying to reach my new goal: 16 pounds (to get under 200) by our move-out date in our current apartment: June 25th.  It comes down to about one pound per week.  This should be manageable, and I am hoping to lose a little more than that, but this also allows for weeks where I gain (everybody gains at some point, right?).

Since I've been losing weight and eating better, I've noticed a few non-weight-loss related things that are also happening.  I want to be clear though; while we have been eating better (no fast food, very limited junk food, and really cut down on extra condiments) we have also had cheat-days or cheat-lunches.  If we have something we aren't really supposed to, like Chipotle, Papa Murphy's, or the new and only good Mexican restaurant we've found out here in Portland, we try to have it for lunch, do a light dinner, and make sure to work out those days.  I told you, we aren't trying to go crazy with calorie counting.  I always eat a healthy breakfast, Cheerios, English Muffins, or Hard-Boiled Eggs, but lunch can get a little murky.

Anyway, interesting side-effects of weight-loss have included: cravings for things I never had much interest in.  I now pine for chocolate.  I never really went for too many desserts.  I like ice cream, I like baking, but Tim is usually the one who eats the brownies I make.  Now that I've been eating better, I want all the chocolate I can get.  It's been really strange--anyone else have something like that happen?
Next side-effect: moderate exercise- usually cardio, has been helping get rid of my headaches.  In most cases, exercise seems to trigger headaches, so this was an added bonus, but it does happen!  It doesn't help when I have migraines- I've been getting them a lot since we moved out to Oregon, but for headaches that are about to morph into migraines, I hop on the exercise bike for about 30 mins and it helps a lot.  Strength training absolutely makes it worse!  So, be careful if you try it!  I'm not even a little bit like a doctor.
Another awesome bonus: clearer skin!  Boom!  I've had trouble with breakouts on my face since I was in high school.  It's gotten a lot better that I am older, but wow!  It's been great with eating healthier and working out 3+ times a week.  I try to drink a lot of water, but I have trouble with it, so I think it's just the healthier food choices that are really helping!

Slightly bad news, now that I've found a routine that works for me, I'm starting to get a little bored with it.  I'm going to check out a Pilates class, and maybe brave a Zumba class at our local rec center.  Tim and I went hiking today, and had a great time!  We might have ruined it a bit by getting Mexican food after, but I'm still under the calories for today!  It was so pretty out, and such a nice change from the tiny fitness center at our apartment.  We went to a local park, and went off the paved walking-path and braved the hiking trail.

Tim's birthday is coming up this week, so we are going to explore the Oregon Coast!  We are planning on walking a lot on our trip, and doing a lot of sightseeing.  Exercising can be really fun when you're looking at something pretty (the landscape, not my man).

If you have tips on fun exercises, please share them!  I'll keep you updated on things that are fun that also burn calories, (we torched about 500 calories hiking in less than an hour!)

Biggest surprise of this week, I like hiking! I also like clearer skin (no foundation on my face for the first time pretty much ever), and less headaches!  And I feel pretty badass after an awesome workout. How about you?

Rookie Mistake

Hello all!

After having four weeks of success, I gained a couple pounds at my last weigh-in.  F.

TOPS has the weekly weigh-in, and little prizes for the biggest loser of the week, or special contests.  Each chapter is different, and at mine, whatever change you want to put in the "kitty" gets collected, and the total, plus one dollar, goes to the biggest loser of the week.  On February 5, I won the kitty!  My little rolled-up dollar and about $2.50 in change was awesome.  I lost 2.2 pounds that week, which is the most I want to lose weekly.  The following week (last week) I gained 1.8 of that back.  UGH.  It was really discouraging.  I exercised the same amount as I usually do (about 150 mins total) and stayed at my calorie goal each day.  I did everything I was supposed to do- but gained because I forgot to factor in something that should have been obvious.  We didn't work.

I am from Ohio.  We get snow.  Lots of it.  So when we got snow here in Portland that week, I didn't expect anything major to happen.  We only got four inches.  I've been mandated into work as a waitress in Level 3 snow emergencies back home (where only emergency personnel are allowed on the road, tickets and fines to those driving who aren't).  So four inches shouldn't do anything, right?  I was so very, very wrong.  It shut down the whole city!

We had to walk to the grocery store, where we saw people skiing to New Seasons.  We also saw lots of snow-shoes, umbrellas, hiking backpacks, tire chains, and ski goggles.  It was crazy.  

We were used to it.  Hats and scarves were enough. 

Our restaurant, where Tim and I both work, closed down Thursday night through Sunday.  We got called off Tuesday and Wednesday, so we only worked one day that week.  One day of lifting trays, running my butt off for customers is not enough activity for the week.  Even staying at 1,500 calories, exercising normally, I forgot to factor in the lack of work- I burn a lot of calories as a waitress.  If I work a double shift, I don't exercise that day, because I burn so much just doing my job.  I didn't factor that in when we were snowed in for the "blizzard" of 2014.  Rookie move.

Lesson learned: when one is not working at an active job, one must exercise more, or eat less.

I'm glad that I didn't gain back everything that I lost.  And, even more glad that I am at a supportive group that simply says "We're glad you're here" when you admit you gained that week.  You'll be happy to know (as I am) that weighing myself at home shows that I have gotten rid of those couple pounds this week, and will hopefully be down at weigh-in.  My analog scale is horribly inaccurate, so it's impossible to know for sure.

Dinners for this week have included steak, orzo-stuffed peppers with feta, and a hot fudge-brownie sundae that we made for Valentine's day.  We also got some Chinese take-out, and made lots of roasted veggies.  I've learned that watching calories doesn't have to mean eating blah-food everyday.  If I go over a few calories, that's ok.  I'm sure I'll regret lots of things.  Eating a brownie will never be one of them.

Weight Loss So Far & Recipes!

Alright all,

I went through my doctor's files, and found out I was wrong- my starting weight with TOPS was not my highest weight.  After my surgery last year, I was actually up to 222.  The first week at TOPS doesn't have a weigh-in, so I lost those few pounds before my "official" start weight.

So, since my first meeting, I have lost 6.5 pounds.

Tim and I like to eat tasty food.  We work as servers, so we are usually at work late, and don't get home to start dinner until about 9 or 10 pm.  We also have a nasty habit of only buying dinner for one night each time we hit the grocery store (which is a lot).  With nothing in the apartment, and it being so late, we fell into a dreadful pattern of picking up fast-food for dinner.  A lot.  Then going right to bed after eating.  No wonder I put on some extra-extra cushion.

Once I decided to go to a meeting, and found one that fit in my schedule, we committed together to eat healthier.  I got really lucky and have a guy that loves to cook, loves to eat healthy, and we like almost all the same food.  I'd say that's the jackpot when it comes to weight-loss support.  While I try to stay under 1,500 net calories a day with MyFitnessPal, Tim just focuses on making healthier choices.  We make simple exchanges- baked tortilla chips instead of fried, fresh veggies instead of canned, extra portion of veggies at dinner instead of pasta, light sauces (or no sauce) instead of creamy-sauces.  We also get down on a lot of soup.  Here's a couple links to soup recipes we've tried and really like, most of which I found first on Pinterest: Mexican-Style Chicken Soup, Sausage and Tortellini Soup.  We have also been trying traditional recipes we have, making them a little healthier.  Instead of our usual Chili, we used a blend of ground turkey and ground beef, and omitted serving it with sour cream.  We also snuck in lots of extra veggies, like carrots and celery, which beefed up the chili without being too fatty for us.

Our favorite dinner right now is a spicy chicken breast with avocado, cilantro and lime, served over rice, usually with garlic green beans, or broccoli.  I don't have an exact recipe- we just do what feels right and hope for the best, but here's what we did last time:

• Two large boneless-skinless chicken breasts (I filet them in half to have four smaller portions)
• One medium avocado
• Small bunch of Cilantro
• Two limes
• One cup uncooked white or brown rice
• Chicken broth, or Chicken Bouillon Cube
• Ground cumin
• Cayenne Pepper
• Garlic Powder
• Onion Powder

I coat the chicken breasts liberally with the cumin and cayenne pepper, add a small amount of garlic and onion powder, and cook in a skillet, on medium heat with a small amount of vegetable oil spray.  While that is cooking, we cook the rice with a 2:1 liquid:rice of chicken broth if we have it, or 2 cups water with a chicken bouillon cube.  Bring liquid and rice to a boil, turn down and cover, and cook on low for about 25 mins, until rice is tender.
To help cool-down the heat from the cayenne, we top the cooked chicken with the avocado mixture.  We stir together one avocado, chopped, with about one cup chopped cilantro (obviously, use less if you want, we just love it-maybe more than each other), and the juice from half of one lime.  We also mix in about 1/2 cup chopped cilantro and juice from half of one lime into our rice.
Serve the chicken on a bed of rice, top with the avocado mixture, and make sure you have at least one more veggie on your plate!

One serving comes to about 600 calories for dinner.  I usually start low with my calories for breakfast and lunch, and work up to a slightly larger dinner.

Those are all typical dinners in our house, and I try to get down to our fitness center about three times per week.  I'm a pretty boring exercise-gal, I stick to cardio on the stationary bike, and about one hard-weight session a week.  I do a full-body weight training session with lighter weights, and more reps.  Two five-pound dumbbells, and a lot of exercises: bicep curl, hammer curl, arm circles, shoulder presses, flat-arm shoulder fly, overhead tricep dips, tricep kicks, bench press, fly press, and tricep lifts overhead on the bench.  Next, I carry those weights for all my leg work: squat, plie squat, calf raises (toes pointing forward, pointing in, and pointed out) and lunges.  I do ten reps of each exercise, cycle through my whole set, then repeat two more times.  I could not walk well for two days, and three days later I'm still between old-lady pace and young-lady pace.  On weeks I don't want to go as hard, I'll try a lighter weight, or remove one full set.  I do this workout with about 20-35 minutes on the bike, alternating every five minutes between a harder resistance level and a lower resistance level (usually 3 and 6).  Finally, Tim and I have been doing Yoga, simply following along with YouTube videos as best we can.  We really like DoYouYoga, and her 30-day challenge.  At bedtime, we usually do a short video, here, and when we are feeling crazy, we follow (curse, yell and swear at) Jillian Michaels.

Hopefully some of these recipes, or fitness ideas will help you!  Or, if you have any fun workout or tasty dishes you use to lose, please share in the comments!

About Me

Hi all!

Welcome to my new Blog!  I'm sure you've all read your share of blogs, fitness and weight-loss tips.  I am a crazy person when it comes to Pinterest boards on Health and Fitness.  Maybe, you're like me and obsessively look at those boards and never really do much about it.

I've struggled with gaining weight since college, particularly since starting birth-control.  I had really bad luck with the Depo-shot, and struggled to get back down to a healthy weight since then.  To be honest, I didn't mind the weight gain, I was happy with how I looked, and wasn't too concerned with what size or shape I was.

I realized at the beginning of this year that I wanted to get back to a healthy size for me.  I put on a few more pounds after my most recent surgery, and wanted to do something.

What kind of plan should a girl follow who hates running, hates cardio, and loves food?  My mother has had awesome luck with Yoga, Zumba, and running.  I'm trying really hard with Yoga, I like the flexibility and stretching, but I can't seem to focus on the uninteresting (to me) parts: breathing, calming my mind, relaxing.  I find my mind wandering, snapping back to Yoga, then back off somewhere else.  And as an uncoordinated, not-at-all graceful person, Zumba is terrifying.  Maybe I can join some sort of elderly Zumba class, so I look awesome and super-graceful.  My mother also told me years ago that "maybe you're not built for running," which I think has something to do with my tree-trunk Polish legs.  It would be a lot of stress on my lack-of-ankles, I suppose.

I tried a Weight-Watchers meeting, which I liked.  But, I'm a server, and live in an expensive city.  Since I can't afford the prices, I checked in with my Grandmother, who goes to her own support group.  It's called TOPS, Take Off Pounds Sensibly, and is a support group with no specific diet plan, much, much lower cost, and is filled with awesome people to help you along your way.  Spoiler alert: it is mostly older women who go, but, if you want to lose weight, make some friends, and maybe learn how to knit, I would suggest trying out a meeting!  The cool thing about TOPS, besides being super-affordable, is that they let you check out as many different chapters (for free) until you find one you like.  It works for me because it holds me accountable.  They have a weekly weigh-in, small prizes for the Biggest Loser of the week, quarter and year, and usually have a silly game going for motivation.   I'm not a very sociable, outgoing person, and I managed to get through my first month sincerely enjoying myself.  It only took me a year to work up the nerve to go to a meeting.
And, after joining TOPS, I have lost weight four of the five weeks I've gone.

Something else that has really helped me is MyFitnessPal.  Women at my meetings have also had good luck with LoseIt and SparkPeople.  Hey man, whatever works for you.  I tried handwriting a journal with food entries, but I found that it's much easier on my phone, and I like to journal after each weigh-in, with how I did, what I did wrong, what I did right, and a small goal for each week.

So here's what I'm doing to lose weight.  I'm going slow.  I'm not trying to lose it all really fast, then put it right back on.  I'm not some kind of sucker.  I'm focusing on staying under about 1,500 calories a day, and trying to work out at least three times per week.  I know I could lose a lot faster, but I don't want to be a person completely consumed by weight-loss, calorie counts, and carbs.  If I kick it tomorrow, I don't want to spend my last day feeling guilty about Chipotle for lunch.

This plan won't be a quick fix, and with my starting measurements, 5'6" 219 pounds, it will take me between seven months to a year to lose down to my goal weight.  I am focusing on long-term goals, not short term results.

I hope you'll keep reading!  I will post about my good weeks, bad weeks, what's working for me, what's not working.  You will get to hear about tasty recipes, fun workouts, not-so-fun workouts (I'm talking about you Jillian Michaels) and how a chubby girl turns into a healthy girl.

Follow me if this sounds mildly interesting!
Good luck getting rid of some pounds!