Thursday, January 22, 2009

Weight Loss Week #2 AND a GIVEAWAY!!!

Well, in spite of the word loss in this post title, I didn't lose any weight this week. Yes, I kept to my diet, and have more sore muscles than I thought possible, but still didn't lose even half a pound.

I suspect two things are at the root of this. 1) A friend shared her knowledge gained from watching the show The biggest Loser (I guess TV can teach you a few good things;) and said that no doubt my muscles are holding water because of the workout they've gotten from my Wii exercise routine.

It makes sense that they would get back at me in this way, because I never in my life have been so incredibly sore! I really am pacing myself. But doing things like the hula hoop at my stage of life is just shocking to the system,lol.

As far as the eating part goes, I admit that I probably cut too many calories in the beginning. Once you start to write your food intake down (which I highly recommend) you begin to see all the little odds and ends that creep into your eating. A bite of this, a bit of that. It all adds up rather quickly.

The second culprit is that my monthly *visitor* is here (I know, too much information; but we're all girls here.. I think) and it always adds 2-3 lbs to my weight. Which means I probably did lose a pound or more, but it won't actually show up until next week. So I'm hoping to see all my hard work pay off then.

I thought I'd mention a few things I do that help me to stick to my diet. 1) Lots of snacks. When I've dieted in the past, ALL I could think about was food, food, food. I mean obsessively. From the moment I woke up (around thinking of other things of course) until I went to bed. And in the evening when the kiddies were all tucked in bed was when food would call to me the loudest. If a diet doesn't allow snacks, it's 10 x harder for me to follow. But if I allow myself snacks whenever I please, it's completely manageable. It might not work for you, but it does for me:)

Some of my favorite diet (and non-diet) snacks: Raw almonds. A few diets ago, I started to realize that my low-fat dieting wasn't just cutting out the bad fat, but the good fat as well. I don't just want to be thin and fit (with emphasis on the fit) I also want to be healthy. I still eat low-fat cheese, ice-cream ect, but I make sure that I have a good balance going.

Back to the almonds. Costco has a big 3lb bag of these at a good price, so you don't have to go to an expensive health food store and put out a lot of money. Unless you don't have a Costco nearby; in which case, I just feel plain sorry for you. This is also a great snack for the kids. And it's good for them to learn to like them in the raw form, not processed with loads of salt and seasonings. Just a thought.

I'm also eating lots of baked apples. It's a great way to help curb that urge for something sweet. Just slice it up (in it's whole form it takes much longer to cook) and sprinkle with cinnamon. Then bake @400 degrees for about 20 minutes. It's like apple pie without the crust:)

I have to admit that I crave sweets especially bad this time of the month, so I will most likely let myself have a little cheat snack sometime today. You tend to appreciate those more when they're rare.

2) Drink, drink, drink. Okay, so we all know we should drink lots of water, diet or no diet. It does the body good. But it also helps curb your appetite. So I drink an 8 oz of water before each meal or snack. It doesn't take away my appetite, but I usually get full much quicker. And for a low-fat (though not neccesarily super-healthy) occasional appetite curb, drink a cup of hot chocolate. The diet version has only 25 calories. I admit I always add a little bit of Irish Cream syrup to mine; because I'm Irish... you'll have to come up with your own excuse for doing it,lol.

So those of you who said you wanted to jump on board with me for the next month in my weight loss challenge, go ahead and leave a comment with your weight loss for the week. Or lack of weight loss if you're like me:) If you're eating better, drinking more water, and exercising, it's really still a win-win situation regardless of whether you lost anything this week. And I'll just keep telling myself that...;)

Now about that GIVEAWAY... A real-life friend of mine (goes to my church in fact; which I guess would make it our church) is having a giveaway on her newest blog The Scrappy Frog (cute name, huh? I'm telling ya, this girl loves frogs). Though I own none of Jeanette's artwork myself (hint, hint) I have been able to view it at several baby showers. She produces adorable items in a wide variety of styles. So if you're looking for some excellent artwork for your kiddies room, she's the one to go to. She is giving away some original artwork (made to order) in this contest, and eventually hoping to sell online. So stop by her blog and sign up. And tell her mykidsmom sent you. And now I sound like a television commercial..lol.

11 comments:

Marva said...

Hi! I just wanted to check in......now I feel bad......my weight loss is not going so well....it's actually not going at ALL!

I am going to walk this afternoon though and I am eating a LOT less, so those are ++++++'s!

I could try harder.....

Kuddos to you though. You are doing so well and it'll be great to see this week's and next week's weight loss all at once. That'll be a boost!

Many blessings!

MyKidsMom said...

Marva, there are definitely times when a person should NOT focus too much on dieting (because we all know how distracting that can be). I myself waited until I was able to get my tooth infection under control, my body had enough going on with that. And with all the sickness you have going on there with your babies, you really have more important things to do right now. But it was sweet of you to take time to comment and be encouraging! I truly appreciate it.

Mrs. Frogster said...

wooot - thanks for the shout-out! Good job with the whole weight issue!
I agree on the snacking often on good things. That works for me, since I have a bad habit of not eating lunch when the kiddies do (hey, they are seated nicely at a table - it's time to get some stuff done!)
Anyway, I just started my whole fitness thing this week, so I let you know my weigh-in later on. :) I'm hoping for some pay-off for all the aerobic boxing and stepping and such!

Nikki said...

Please don't hate me! I don't know how it happened, and I feel like I should apologize, but my weight was down four pounds from last week. I don't think I actually lost four pounds because I don't think I had actually gained all six of those (definitely four, though). Anyway, there you go.

Since you brought it up, I have a visitor, too. He came yesterday, and I don't feel well. It probably has something to do with the fact that he hasn't been here since before I got pregnant with Daniel.

Nikki said...

Oh, and I wanted to mention something about low fat stuff. They sometimes have more calories than the full fat things. You probably already knew that, but I wanted to say it just in case you didn't.

MyKidsMom said...

Nikki: Your visitor is a... he? LOL Please forgive me, but I was actually trying to figure out if we were talking about the same visitor here, or whether you had some male relative visiting your family,lol. As you can see, my sense of humor is as odd as always;)

And I definitely do pay very close attention to the ingredients in the low-calorie,low-fat items. I don't buy most prepackaged diet convenience items for that very reason. But the cheese and items such as that are mainly made with skim milk as the factor for lowering fat. I've actually considered being a nutritionist when I go back to school (one day) because I find the whole study of eating vs.health quite fascinating.

Little Natural Cottage said...

Girl, I'm SORE, too... and I've only exercised ONE TIME this week (shame, shame on me, I know). I've lost 2 lbs so far, but my "diet" started about two weeks ago. You'll probably start seeing those pounds drop off next week... I know it always seems to take a while to my body jump started. :oP

Keep up the good work, and thanks for the tips! I LOVE nuts, especially almonds.

Oh, and the give away sounds fun! I'm on my way over to check it out. ~Kristy

MyKidsMom said...

Oh Kristy, I love that new profile pic! I have to learn to do those black and white pics myself, so I can stop envying yours,lol.

Mrs. Darling said...

Well Im with Nikki. I lost 4 pounds this week too. Sick, sick, sick.

Kaye said...

Well, I'll first comment on your commenters...way to go Nikki and Mrs. Darling! Four pounds is incredible for a week!

Now for you, MyKidsMom...don't feel bad at all! I have done WeightWatchers successfully twice (although I obviously stopped the program's principles and regained...oops) and learned that it's not at all unusual to lose little, nothing, or even gain even when you are doing the "right" thing. Some things that have contributed to that for me in the past...1.) a big loss previously and my body was adjusting, 2.) losing 1 lb fat + gaining 1 lb muscle = no loss, but better health and fewer inches! and 3.) changing my food routine. After working to lose for a while my body would get into a rut from eating the same foods so all I would do is switch up a few items and voila! Weight loss! I hope some of this is helpful for you!

And it's also good to know that at WW, their scale would pick up a 0.2 lb loss when mine at home was "the same" because it wasn't quite that precise!

And last trick I learned doing WW--look at not just the low fat food items, but see if they have a sugar free version. It usually has fewer calories than the low fat stuff. My examples of those things are sugar free bread and jello pudding cups (one of my favorite diet snacks).

Lastly (wow...sorry for this extremely long comment!)...thank you for the love and encouragement over at my blog. It's nice to know that there are people who care and who you care about and yet you've never even heard their voice! It's crazy, but it is also a good feeling. Thanks for checking up on me and for the bloggy encouragement!

Anonymous said...

Hey go check out my weight loss pics on my diet blog. Its the end of the year pic. I'll change my url in my name on this comment so all you have to do is click on my name to go straight to it.