Amber and I at THE KNOB in Falmouth, Ma.

We had a lovely afternoon full of starfish, rocks, leaves, and a sunset.

Amber and I walk/hiked for 3 1/2 hours.

We lost all track of time and enjoyed every minute of peacefulness.

Hopefully we stick to our goal of making this a weekly ritual.

Starfish

Cole's feet and the rocks

Leaves

And the beautiful Sunset.

Where you at?

Well, I am right here....

Enjoying cupcakes, pizza, cheese, biscuits, and butter!

Why?

Oh, well because I am in limbo.

Again?

Yup.

When are you planning on getting out of this "limbo?"

Soon.

Really?

Maybe

No, hopefully.

Why this time?

I decided to learn more about my PCOS and in doing so, I have learned I am eating the wrong foods.

You mean cupcakes and pizza are wrong?

Yup! Who knew? ha ha

The good news is that I am now reading more about my PCOS. I was diagnosed in May and have had too many things going on to even really take some time and learn more about it. Now I am. I am taking the time to learn what I need to be eating, doing, and not doing to take care of myself and my body. Small steps, I know. But I still feel like I am making positive life choices. It will soon begin to trickle into positive diet choices. For now...I will settle for life choices that are positive.

Okay, okay, I'll post mine, too.

So I haven't posted anything in a little while.  I had family in, and boy do I fall off the bandwagon when I have company.  Good grief.  I need to learn to eat right ALL the time, and not just when I'm by myself.  I know that seems silly, but it's true.

I weighed in this morning, and I'm at 215, which is a 2.5 lb loss since I started.  Truth be told, I had lost 3 lbs the first week, then gained a lb back while my sister was here.

I didn't want to post my before pictures, mostly because my abdomen is so distended I look like I'm pregnant.  It doesn't change when I put on loose, ill-fitting clothes, but it does draw attention away from it.

So here are my NOW pictures (I like that way of thinking, BTW, Cole).  Right now I am wearing a size 14 jean and an XL shirt.

Today's a Blue Day

Well, I have been putting this off for a full day now. It is at this time I need to report that I am UP .4 pounds. I am not surprised by this in the least bit. I have not been as strict as I should be and I have been making poor choices.

Why can't I get my butt in gear? I know what I want, I just can't seem to stick with it.

I am an emotional eater. Always have been. The ups and downs of life are becoming more difficult. I seriously, just want to sit on the couch and eat Ben and Jerry's Everything But The.... every night before I go to bed. I know that isn't a good choice, but ahhhh. I am driving myself crazy.

I decided to get up at 7am and do my exercises now. Everyday! Whether I am going for a walk or doing my pilates. *Just realized I don't know where that DVD is. * I don't know what I am doing with the points. I want to follow my points and write it all down, but food just gets in the way...

Why do I continue to hold myself back? How do I move forward?

Current Pictures

I don't feel quite right saying, "Here are my before pictures." The truth is, this is what I look like now. This is me. This is what I don't see until I have a picture taken and realize what I truly do look like. This is my mess to clean up. This is me steeping out into the world and saying, "Heck ya, I know I am fat. I am trying to change that!" These are my current pictures. I am a size 18/20 pant. I wear a XXL shirt. This is me.

Family, Fun, and Food Oh My!

Family: A couple days ago I was just having a pity party for myself. My brother and his family had not been able to make it out to our home since we moved here in July. I was sharing these feelings with some friends when I got a text message that made my year! They were going to come up (they live about an hour away) and spend the night. The entire family!

We had a fantastic time! My new niece is a joy to be around. Sleep, Eat, Poo, and repeat. I love her so much already. I can't wait to see what kind of personality she develops.

Fun: Hubs made, ok attempted, to make a fire for us out back. It was a struggle. I think our wood was bad, because the flame we had going was from the starter sticks. Oh well. The nephew, age 5, still had a wonderful time roasting marshmallows and sitting outside in the dark. He loved looking at the stars and learning about the Big Dipper. "What's it dip?" Adorable, right? He always keeps me in stitches. We also played video games, had pillow fights, went for a nice walk, and just had a fantastic time sitting around being with one another. I wouldn't trade a minute of this weekend for all the money in the world.

Food: Ahhhh, yes. This is the "Oh my" section of my post. I am being 100% honest here and sharing that it all started with one bad choice followed by another and so on. It wasn't over eating. In fact, I think I was under eating and that lead to bad choices of food that had too many calories. So, here we go...

Friday Evening: Boneless Buffalo Wings w/Blue Cheese from Chili's. I did a little search and found out via Hungry Girl that those bad boys are 33 points for the basket. Don't believe me. Check it out!

Saturday: I had cereal for breakfast, so all was well there. Lunch was nothing because I was busy making a red velvet cake complete with cream cheese frosting, all from scratch. (Remember, I was having some important visitors!) That evening we had hot dogs for dinner. I had 2 on a light bun with some chips (small handful) and a tablespoon of some not very good mac and cheese. I split a small piece of cake with Hubs. I think he ate most of it.

Sunday: Breakfast was soooo yummy! We made pancakes, sausage (I had turkey sausage), home fries, and syrup (I had light). I am confident that I did fine there points wise. I had 3 small 4 inch pancakes and 3 links of turkey sausage. I don't think I even had 3 tablespoons of syrup. Lunch was quick. 2 cold hot dogs on the way out the door. Ohhhhh and my own slice of cake this time...thin, but still! For dinner I vowed to turn it around. I made WW General Tso Chicken with white rice. It was yumo and a good comfort food.

Am I wrong here? I don't think I over ate, I just made poor choices.

Today, I have been back on track. As a matter of fact, I even worked out! I did my elliptical this morning and then this evening, Ber and I went for a walk. 1.6 miles in 29 minutes. I am pretty happy with that.

Tomorrow, my plan is to get some organizing done in the basement, eat on plan, and go for a walk.

The weekend, thoughts, checking in...

Wow, did I have an amazing weekend!  There was no school this past Friday, so we took the kids to "the knob" for some hiking and a picnic.  My first super PROUD moment in my WL journey is that I opted to bring a salad instead of using bread for a sandwich!  Yay for me!  We did lots of hiking there and then moved on to a local hiking trail to hike some more.  It was a beautiful day and so nice to be enjoying the Cape in the fall.  I will also admit that it was somewhat discouraging.  It's hard to know that I let myself gain so much.  I was moving slowly after a while, and it was honestly hard to keep up with my guys.

Enjoying my salad on the beach

On Saturday, after a nice morning walk with my Cole, we took BEFORE pictures.  Dun dun dunnnnnnn...  Wow.  I don't know that I'm ready to share mine yet.  Maybe after I have made some progress.  Later in the day, my family loaded up and went to a local beach to play in the tide pools.  It was such fun to explore, to hear the amazement in my boys' voices, to get to teach them some things.  We had spaghetti for dinner on Saturday, and again I passed the bread up.  I'm telling you, this is HUGE for me!  By Saturday night, my fibromyalgia was letting me know that I had overdone things, and I had to take some pain medication to sleep.

Can't hide from the reality of a picture

Yesterday I started feeling the effects of a few days' good eating habits.  My appetite has decreased drastically.

I told Nicole the other day that I won't be logging onto Facebook chat until I've done at least 30 minutes of exercise.  I have to get moving and make a habit of it!

The Beautiful Ladies of "Why Weight?"

So, Ber totally looks amazing as usual. I, on the other hand, feel the need to share the pic so you can see the "why" I am on this journey!

Perseverance

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.  - Julie Andrews

What an amazing quote from a beautiful woman.  I don't know the context of what she was referring to, but it doesn't matter, really.  As someone who has struggled with my weight since I was in high school, I have fluctuated up and down many times over the past 12 years.  I'm now at a weight that I haven't seen since I was pregnant with my last child - 217.5 lbs.  Yikes.


Most people who know me know the success I had with Weight Watchers a couple of years ago.  Then, about a year ago, my world fell apart, and I've been gradually climbing a slippery slope to finding myself again.  I have gone from 179 to 217.5 in a matter of a year, and it's time for it to end.  


I have been experiencing a full gamut of health problems, and when I talk to my physician about my concerns regarding my obesity, she encourages me to get some other things under control first.  I do appreciate that she is concerned about dealing with these other things (fibromyalgia, kidney stones, etc), but to me, my mental health and the big picture of my physical health is dependent on me losing some of this weight.  It is physically a burden, but the emotional toll this weight gain has taken is far worse.


As fate would have it, I reached the end of the proverbial rope, and had discussed with my husband whether it would benefit our family for me to follow WW again.  Just as I was preparing to get going again, my beautiful friend Nicole mentioned that she was about to start living the point-counting way of life.  What a beautiful, beautiful thing!  Having support - and support right here with someone kicking my butt to do this the right way - is going to be instrumental to my success.


Yesterday morning I started counting points.  I'm allowed 27 points a day.  I have points trackers, calculators, etc.  Because of my kidney stone, I have put my gym membership on a sort of sick leave status.  I will be belly dancing again, hopefully with my girlfriends, but if not, at home.  I forgot how good utilizing muscle control feels!  I also want to take advantage of the beautiful autumn in New England and start walking at least a few times a week.  I also have a Wii Fit that I haven't used recently, and I'll be using that for some low-impact cardio and core strengthening balance exercises.  My ultimate goal?  To be able to weigh in on my balance board and not hear the Wii say, "that's obese!"  Nothing like hearing you're fat from a video game.  


I will persevere.  I will do this.  I know it can work, it does work, and it requires work.  Thank you for your willingness to endure another blogging expedition on the ultimate journey of finding myself and being the best me I can be.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Oh, Mage. If you only knew!

Hello. My name is Nicole and I am addicted to losing and gaining weight....or at least you would think so!

Weight loss has been a (not so fun) hobby of mine for the last, I lost count how many, years. I have done it all people. ALL consisting of and IN particular order: Atkins, WW, South Beach, WW, Atkins, South Beach meets Atkins, WW, Dietician, Medifast, WW, Atkins, Calorie Counting, WW, Jenny Craig, and back to my old faithful, WW.

I have had great success on all of these wonderful plans. I have lost 30-40 pounds with these plans at different times and in different combinations, but I have never been able to keep it off. Why? Who knows? Frustrating? Of course it is! My fault? Totally!!!!! Ready for a change that is going to stick? YOU KNOW IT!!!!!!

This (blogging) is going to be my new way of keeping track of myself and hopefully a few readers will help me with it as well.

It is also going to help that I have a partner in crime, my Thelma to my Louise, my Jen to my Rachel, my fellow giggler: Amber, or as I lovingly refer to her, Ber. She is a beautiful person; inside and out. I don't care how corny that sounds, either! Good habits are contagious, so here's hoping we both catch something from one another! I know we can do it! * Love you, Ber! *

We will be riding the WW train this time around. Fingers crossed this is a non-stop ride!

Let's get to the numbers. No sense in putting it off....

I can have 30 points a day.

Starting Weight (10-1-10): 248.8

Week 1 Weight In (10-8-10): 244.1

Down 4.7. I'll take it! I wasn't as "together" as I would have liked to be, but a loss is a loss. I kept telling myself, "I'll just wait for Ber to start. No biggy." Bad Bad Bad, Cole! Obviously, I did better than I thought, so WOOO HOOO!

Goals for this week: * Elliptical 4x this week for 30 minutes.

* Eat all my points/do not go over.

* Try 1 new recipe and share it!