Re-design!

Of course, when I should be studying for a math quiz, I decided to re-design my blog. Whatever.

I thought that the new title deserved some explaining, since I didn't start this blog to be a weight-loss blog, though that's exactly where it's ended up taking me.

Before I moved to college, I came up for a weekend camp, during which I was told that the food here was so good, people didn't gain the 'freshman fifteen,' they gained the 'freshman fifty.' I made up my mind at that point that I was NOT going to gain another fifty pounds this year (due to underlying health issues, I had during a very short time my senior year.) The day before I moved, I made a promise to myself in a conversation with my mother. I said that I was not going to gain fifteen pounds, fifty pounds, or anything of the sort. Instead, I vowed to lose fifty pounds over the course of this year, and then write a book about it (that's such a running theme in my life.)

I may have gotten a bit of a late start, and I may have just recently gotten into high-gear, but I believe that I can do it. I have until May 7th to reach 178.4lbs, and I feel like that's quite a reasonable amount of time, as long as I stay completely on track. I mean, if I don't lose quite that much then I'm definitely not going to be bummed; anything at this point is good. But still, it's nice to have that goal set, and that's the only date that I'm going to set for myself. The rest of it can just come off naturally, but I'd like to have lost fifty pounds by the time I move home for summer vacation.

Also, one other thing I'd like to point out: I fixed the sizing on my progress pictures, and they're now under a specific page, located up there (^^), along with a goals/rewards page. I really had a lot of fun sitting down and planning specific goals, and (even though it's not set yet), once I reach my ultimate goal weight, I have the biggest reward planned; something that I've wanted to do all my life. You'll have to check it out if you want to see though!!

Kay, that's all I have for now. (:

-Britt

It's Monday.

Surprisingly, there's not a case of the Mondays in sight for me today! I mean, I woke up later than normal, but I made it to class on time and the sun is shining and the snow is melting and Valentine's Day in college>Valentine's Day in high school. The only real setback of today was that because I woke up late, I didn't have time to go to the cafeteria to get a banana, so I had a really unhealthy breakfast of 100calorie bite-sized brownies, a box of raisins, and a swig of milk. What counts as 'unhealthy' now could have actually been a lot worse, but still.

I did something to mess up my knee, but I'm not going to let it stop me from working out after dinner with a group of my friends. I almost backed out because I have to go to a movie showing for class, but I told myself that if I wanted to get the ball rolling with this weight-loss, I needed to buckle down and start moving. I'm going to do the best that I can today with my knee, but I don't think it's going to bother me too much; at least I hope not.

I'm getting ready to go to dinner, but here's what I've had to eat today:

Breakfast:

100calorie Brownie bites

1/8cup raisins

1/4cup skim milk

Lunch:

turkey sandwich on wheat bread, piece of lettuce, slice of cheese, light mayo

2 pickle spears

4 orange slices

snickerdoodle cookie

Afternoon Snack:

100calorie Brownie bites

Dinner:

2 pieces coconut shrimp

mashed red potatoes

cupcake

1cup skim milk

Evening Snack:

apple

My daily points allowance decreased by 1 after this last weigh-in, but it's not really much of a change from last week.

-Britt

Cause for Celebration

I have many reasons to celebrate right now:

1. I think I'm almost over the sickness; all that's left is a runny nose and a cough. The fever started Tuesday and ended with a bang sometime late Thursday night/early Friday morning. All I know is that I woke up in my Mommy's bed (I was sick and needed to be taken care of like a toddler, apparently) completely drenched in sweat. Evidently it took leggings, pj pants, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, slippers, and three blankets to finally break my fever, but whatever works.

2. I got a super cute new pair of boots today that I'm absolutely in love with.

3. I got a zebra pillow pet from my parents. This made the day wonderful in and of itself because the zebra is apparently the rarest of all pillow pets...so much so that he was selling for almost a hundred dollars on ebay around Christmas. Somehow, with a magnificent stroke of luck, my mother found him at a Justice store three weeks ago when there were only two left from a shipment that had arrived an hour prior. I am in love.

4. I can almost (ALMOST!) fit into a pair of black skinny jeans that I got for Christmas last year (2009) and refused to take back because I knew that one day, I'd fit into them. That day is almost here! I can get them completely on, which is already more than I could do when I received them, and they button. But the problem is that they're still snug and my belly sort of filters out the top of them. Regardless, I'd say another ten pounds and they'll fit more comfortable, and another twenty will get rid of some of the belly spillage.

5. (This is the big one!) I weighed in today, and I lost a total of 4.2 pounds last week! Granted a majority of this loss probably came from my sheer lack of eating adequately Wed-Fri because of my illness, but still; I'd like to think that the careful tracking that I did when I was eating had a lot to do with it as well. I really worked hard at considering and controlling what I was eating, and even though some meals were too small or even didn't exist, I feel overall accomplished about this week's progress. This loss gives me a total of 12.4 pounds, putting me beyond my first goal weight and quickly on track to losing 10%!!! Here's to hoping that I can do it with more ease, now that I know just how good tracking does!!!

That's it, really. I've also added some progress pictures to the right side bar, but they're abnormally large right now and I don't have sleep time to waste on fixing them, so I'll do that soon. I'm kind of upset that I didn't smile in my pictures from today, but I'll just remember to do it next time!!!!

-Britt

Oops.

Today, I sort of splurged.

I didn't track and I didn't really eat much at all, 'cept for a slice of cheesecake and some ice cream...but being that all I had was a little bit of chicken noodle soup for lunch/a turkey wrap for dinner, I'd say it all evens out.

All I know is that this sickness is hardcore kicking my butt...I just want it to be over; I didn't even have the energy to fully blog today.

mer.

Anchor

I am sick.

I've been so good at fighting all of the illness that's run rampant on campus since August, getting away with only one day of a stomach ache a few weeks ago. Of course, when I'm coming up on the busiest few weeks of the semester, I catch something. I woke up this morning and felt absolutely miserable. I had a sore throat and slight cough, but the biggest part was that I ached everywhere. Sitting through/staying awake in my morning class was a chore and I've wanted nothing more than a nap all day long. Earlier I felt so bad that I contemplated not eating lunch. However, after a nice long pep talk with myself, I managed to grab a little bite from the cafeteria before my afternoon classes. I felt better for a while, but I really can't wait for my night class to be over so that I can come back, watch Glee, and then just sleep.

After I posted yesterday, I ran into a few minor snags in the cafeteria: the stir-fry was chicken instead of beef, and the potato soup was gone. Instead, I got the stir-fry and brown rice, opted out of the slice of wheat bread, and got an "oriental hot and sour" soup. If dieting in college has taught me one thing, it's that I need to be able to adapt to sudden changes and overcome them. After dinner I went to The Munch (a campus convenience store) with my roommate, and there I got a cup of grapes and fresh strawberries, and a 3 Musketeer bar. The Musketeer bar was an almost instant regret, but I really wanted it and with 49 extra points every week, I could have it without guilt. I don't like to utilize the 49 points too often, because I can't trust myself with them yet; I really tend to go overboard on things easily.

Despite the dinner switch and the candy bar, yesterday actually ended up pretty great. Everyone parked on North Campus had to move their cars yesterday for plowing, so last night when we went to return them to the lot, I just threw on a CMU fleece that I bought back in October. When I bought the fleece, it was just a bit more snug than I would have liked, but I was thinking about starting WW so I just let it go. Well, last night when I put it on, it was quite loose-fitting!!! This was the first time that I'd actually noticed a difference in the way my clothes were fitting, and I was beyond ecstatic. I mean, every once in a while my jeans will be looser than normal, but they're made to stretch with wear and so I don't really count them as reliable. But this jacket, which I haven't worn since before Christmas, was just the pick-me-up that I needed.

Along with the jacket, I came across another anchor today. In my Honors lit class, we have snacks. They typically are oreos or something equally as inticing. Today was mini chocolate and cinnamon sugar donuts. Those two flavors are my favorite, but I took one look at them and told myself "No, you just had lunch, and those won't feel good on the scale this week." It worked, too: I saw them sitting on the desk all class, and I didn't want them after that. The necessity for an anchor is becoming more apparent, especially after last week's WW meeting. Even though I feel pretty bad today, little things like that have made me want to smile all day long.

I have to finish a paper before class, but here's what today's food looks like:

Breakfast:

1/2 whole grain english muffin, toasted

1tbsp Nutella

1 banana

1cup skim milk

Lunch:

1/2 white pita

2 slices deli turkey

lettuce

1 slice American cheese

light mayo

2 pickle spears

10 green grapes

a sugar cookie (our caf's cookies are delish, and only 3 PointsPlus; I can never pass them up)

Snacks:

WW Coffee cake

Ritz 100 calorie snack mix

Dinner:

Chicken Marsala w/ wide noodles

Steamed broccoli spears

cherry jello cubes

1cup skim milk

Evening Snacks:

1bag single-serve popcorn

string cheese

I'm doing really good with staying at my 36 PointsPlus, and honestly, with the way I'm feeling today, this might be a ton of food. We'll see.

-Britt

Feelin' Good, part 2

Of course I would forget something.

I wanted to include this in the previous post, but 1. I forgot, and 2. it was pretty lengthy anyways, so I'll just leave it here.

Jennifer Hudson was part of my inspiration to start WW from day one. She has worked incredibly hard and looks AMAZING! When the WW site offered this as a free download, you can bet I jumped right on it...it's a beautiful rendition of the song, and only adds to my motivation. I'm definitely going to be rocking this at the gym. (:

Feelin' Good

I was actually going to blog last week, because I went to the gym on Thursday and spent 30 minutes on the elliptical, but I ran out of time and then didn't actually feel too great about my over-all performance the rest of the week.

I'd like to take this time to interject something: this is slowly turning into a blog in which I discuss only my weight-loss. I'm kind of okay with it, because it helps me out a lot...I hope you're okay with it too.

Anyways, after my class on Thursday I met Hannah at the gym and we worked out; I was beyond proud of myself and decided that I needed to start doing it more often. It hasn't happened since then, but my intentions are still the same and I fully intend to get back there more than once this week, plus take advantage of my mother's Planet Fitness membership when I go home this weekend. I wish I could make up a reason as to why I didn't go to the gym on Friday, because I completely planned to, but the truth is simply that I didn't want to go outside. Saturday some of my family came up and we walked campus all day, so I'll count that as a workout, and yesterday I took a nap (my cousin was sick during their visit and was awake at short intervals throughout the night, therein keeping me awake as well), went shopping, and then watched the Super Bowl with my roommates. The good thing about yesterday: I bought yoga pants while shopping, so like I said, good intentions.

I texted Hannah last night and told her to meet me at the gym today, but when I woke up this morning, I felt terrible. Not sick, persay, but just all around gross....tired and achy, so I told her we'd have to postpone until later this week. Besides, I have a math exam tomorrow that I really need to study for.

However, I still feel really good as far as my mindset goes. At weigh-in on Saturday morning, I gained 1.4 lbs. I was discouraged at first, but I also knew that it wasn't going to be pretty, for a number of reasons (the biggest of which being that I was in a foul mood all week and ate whatever I felt like). Instead of letting the number get me down though, I decided that I needed to use it as motivation to do ten times better this week (not to mention that this was the theme of the meeting as well).

So far, so good though. I've written down everything that I've eaten/am going to be eating today, and I managed to have quite a bit of food and hit my PointsPlus target exactly. The beautiful thing about Weight Watchers is that I can really stock up on fruits and veggies and they don't cost me any points. Already today, I've had a banana, a pear, lettuce and tomato on my sandwich, and two pickle spears, none of which went against my target.

To get an idea of just how much I'm eating today, here's a rundown:

Breakfast:

1/2 whole grain english muffin, toasted

1 banana

1tbsp Nutella spread

1 cup skim milk

Lunch:

Turkey wrap: flour tortilla, 3 slices of deli turkey, 1 slice of American cheese, lettuce, 3 slices of tomato, and light mayo

2 dill pickle spears

1 small pear

100 Calorie Oreo Cakesters (for dessert and my never-ending sweet tooth)

Afternoon Snack:

Weight Watchers Coffee Cake (like I said...major sweet tooth.

And then, even though I haven't gone yet, here's what I'm planning on having for dinner:

Beef & Vegetable Stir fry

Meatless Potato soup

1 slice wheat bread

1 cup skim milk

Vanilla-Raspberry Parfait (I figure if I have something small and sweet then I won't crave later)

My evening snacks are planned to be:

1 orange

1 single-serve bag of light butter-flavored popcorn

All of this totals out to 36 PointsPlus, which is exactly on target and I couldn't be more excited.

I'm anxious to see how the numbers look at the end of this week!

-Britt