Just a heads up...

Just a wee reminder that it's next Tuesday (not THIS Tuesday, but NEXT Tuesday) so that way you have time still to go shoppin'!

The cats are participating in my weight loss efforts...

(A special thank you and shout out to Things that make you go Awww over on FaceBook for the use of their photo, they are wonderful and delightful and I love them to bits!)

Lessons learned this week...

• As a welcomed surprised, one day this week past, I discovered that I had a number of points left at the end of the day (6, when you have 37 for the day and you've 6 left, that's almost enough for a meal and you dole those points about sparingly, that's quite a bit!) I was shocked! As well, I did find that I wasn't hungry neither!  I know I need to be careful of this because it can cause me to not lose weight as well.  Weight Watchers says it can be a failing oddly enough.  When you don't utilize all your points it sets you up to not burn all your fuel so to speak, hence your body wants to hold onto all that you eat.  There for you won't use it for fuel and lose weight.  *sigh*  Figures doesn't it?  I have to eat when I'm not hungry so that I can lose weight? lol woe is me!
• Weight Watchers counts EVERYTHING in the way of activity.  So  if you spent 20 minutes vacuuming the house, count it!  Same goes for any other household cleaning, especially if you're working up a sweat.  I keep forgetting to keep track of my time.  I need to do better about that.  Especially since I'm not as of yet exercising to the level that I want to be.  Don't worry cheerleaders, I'm getting there. 
• I finally got to watch Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead that my friend (+ Sarah  Hernandez) great documentary.  I know I've mentioned it.  It was so good that it bears mentioning again.  If you have Amazon Prime or Netflix, by all means, watch it.  You'll be glad you did!
• I started a new medication this week.  It's messing with my appetite something terrible.  I'm not feeling the urge to eat.  Which you may find that odd and rather a good thing.  Yeah, I would too under normal circumstances.  Yet, being an insulin dependent diabetic, I HAVE to eat or else it gets ugly...FAST.  So I'm forced to eat a little bit of something.  The rub is what?  So oddly enough THIS week, I'm finding I'm going OVER my points on a daily basis.  Nothing terrible, just a few points here and there.  Nothing more so far than 5 points, but that was in one day and it was due to the fact that we had pizza for dinner.  Yes we had pizza.  You can have pizza.  Ohhhh it was so good!  Another yummy from of all places Aldi's.  I'll do a review sometime (provided I can get a picture of it before it gets eaten first, lol) for you.
• I think that this new medication is going to be a huge help and make a vast improvement over the quality of things in my life.  At least I hope so.  We'll see.  I'll keep you  up to date.

So, so far, into my second week, I'd have to say, it was a raging success and I'm so far thrilled with the result.  I'm still steadfast in my resolve in that in order to see results you need to keep track of what you're doing.  Not just in what you're eating but in everything else.  That way you can track progress in all aspects of your life. 

Thanks for taking the time to stop by Cheerleaders.  It's always much appreciated.  Till next time!

Calling all of my cheerleaders for some help...

Hey cheerleaders, I'm in need of your help.

I'm in need of some new music for working out.  My taste in music spans all genre's so I'm not to particular in what is suggested.  All I ask is that it's upbeat and something I can move to.

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

So it's Wednesday...

So today is the OFFICIAL first weigh in being back to the ...*ahem* program.  I was trying not to look at this in a negative light.  It's so easy to do.  Especially when I've so far to go and all you can see is how big the number is at the end.  I always end up thinking of some or another comedian's joke who said:

"Yanno what a diet is? It's die with a *t* at the end of it."

 He/she says it very deadpan and it gets lots of yucks.  But sometimes, it's not easy when you've got what you see to be, as much weight to lose (to be honest, I may not have to lose a whole lot of weight to get healthy, but in my twisted and warped mind, I think I do) as I do.

So here I am, tiptoe-ing up on the scale, as if I could sneak up on it and hop on it to get a better number. lol I ate like I was supposed to all week.  I'm allotted on a daily basis 37 points (remember I'm doing Weight Watchers) and those points depending on what you eat can go by quickly or stretch on for miles. Then on top of those daily points I have 49 weekly *extra* points to do with what I will.  I can break those 49 points down so that I can have them daily or I can save them all up for one special occasion or I can just use them here and there.  As well, not to have this get even more confusing, lol, when you throw exercise into the mix that ADDS points to your 49 weekly points even!  Which is nice so you can have even more weekly points.  So if I went swimming for example and earned 3 points, I'd have a weekly total of 52 points.  Then if on Friday night wanted to go to happy hour with friends and have a beer and potato skins, I could because I have the extra points to do so.  Although, I have to say, I'd love the time with friends...I'd rather have the diet soda and have nachos instead, lol....and that's okay, I'd just need to account for it!

All that's to be said to kind of explain or refresh your memory (for those of you who've been following for a while) how all this works.  So last week, only 2 occasions did I use extra points for a total of 3 extra weekly points being used.  However! Most days, I'd venture a guess as to 5 of the 7, I didn't even hit the 37 points being used.

Hence, why I looked to today with some trepidation. 

And I'm happy to say cheerleaders that I'm a big fat loser!!!

I'm down to 252!!! For a total lost this week of five pounds!  YAY!

Nervous about tomorrow...

I have to admit, I'm nervous for tomorrow morning.

It'll be my first weigh in since being back on plan.  Let's be a bit realistic, last week didn't really count.  I'd only been back on plan for a mere 24 hours.  Can't do much in that amount of time now can I?

I mean besides wrap my head around what it is I need to do and get my mind screwed on right.

So I'm nervous because it'll be my first real weigh in and I'm rather anxious to see what the scale says (or doesn't say...or if it laughs at me)...I know I shouldn't give this piece of equipment the power of me that I do, but I just can't help myself.

So for the past week that's what I've been doing. I think I've been doing it well.  I've had some serious self discovery along the way as well too.

Watched another WONDERFUL documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  At a friend's insistence (thank you Sarah!) and I'm so very glad I did!  It had truly inspired me! I want to give it a go, but when I looked into juicing on the Weight Watchers website, and how I need to work it into the plan, it wasn't very clear and I want to make sure that it comes together.  Some people on the boards also indicated that they'd gained (yeah I couldn't believe it either) so I want to get to the library and really do some more reading up on it so that I'm making sure that it's something that is really good for me and in my best interest.  Especially where my diabetes is concerned.  That is something I do not want to play around with!  How ever I totally agree with the film maker in that if we've made our bodies unwell from unhealthy eating to begin with, it stands to reason that we should be able to make our bodies well and healthy from healthy eating.  Just give it the right foods and time.

Speaking of which, I went to the doctor today to follow up with a previous office visit and talk about my lab draw that I had done last week...

First off, the phlebo was a hot mess.  I told her where to draw and she didn't listen to me.  Secondly, look what she left behind!

I couldn't figure out what the hell it was!  I'd never seen anything like it.  It was on there from the Thursday I had the labs drawn till today.  As the doctor and I poked at it and the nurse and I picked at it, all three of us had a light bulb moment (one giant DUH! lol) and it turned out to be adhesive of all things!!  Anyways, that's taken care of.

Onto test results....

The one that I really wanted to know was my A1c.  It was 7.5, which is up from my previous 6.3 (if memory serves me correct) yet down from my all time high of 13.1 which was where it was when I was when I was in the hospital a few years ago and lost 20 some pounds but didn't keep it off.  This time around, I've been more successful with more weight off for longer.

The doctor was happy with my over all fats panel in that it was 223.  It should be below 206 he says.  However, there's always room for improvement.

My triglycerides were 240, they should be below 150.

My good fats (HDL) is 46, I'd like to get them higher though because they are too close to being on the borderline of bad. Borderline of bad is 40.

My bad fats (LDL) is 129, they should be below 70.  Not screaming scary high, but still...I'd like it to be below 70.

These are numbers I'd like to get sorted along with my weight, but given that if my weight comes in line, I figure that so will these numbers.

So now we know...

One more thing...

I've been diagnosed with ADHD.  I was put on a new medication called Strattera.  Talk about a relief.  I'm not crazy and hopefully I'll be able to deal with my shiny ball syndrome.  I'll be able to do the simplest of things, such as read a book.  Something I've not been able to do for roughly 7 years.  I miss it. 

We'll see what happens and how the medication works for me.

Weight loss tip # 932

Well...at least anything you know is bad for you...

Lesson's learned this week...

• The hardest thing to do was getting my shoes on to work out.
•  Now that my shoes are on,  I just need to move onto the treadmill or to a dvd workout video.
•  If you're gonna hop up on a treadmill you've not used in a while, you'd best dust it off before you do a George Jetson off the back of it!  We won't go into the ugliness of that one...
• Making the adjustment to vegetarianism isn't as difficult as I thought it would be.
• If you haven't watched Vegucated yet, take the time some time this weekend to stream it from Amazon Prime or Netflicks, I'm telling ya, it's worth the watch!
• Trying to get The Wonder One to understand where I'm coming from on the aforementioned topic is much more difficult....*sigh*
• It feels good to be back to monitoring what I'm eating and doing.  I don't feel so wayward and lost. I'm feeling good about having direction again.
• Before the end of the year I bought a calendar/diary to track my blood sugar and other things I wanted to keep track of.  I'm finding it so very helpful.  I'm so glad I did it.  It's just a matter of not letting that New Year's Glow wear off, lol.
• Normally (or should I say it used to be?) I didn't care for any other soups other than tomato or cream based soups.  Well the cream based soups are WAY higher in calories it would stand to reason due to the cream, right? Right.  Soooo, I saw at the store this week that Progresso had their soups on sale so I thought I would give a few vegetable (non-cream based) soups that sounded yummy a try.  I have to say....one can so far that I've tried had 4 points and was quite good.  So you can expect a review on that product in the future.  Given that it's winter, soup is a nice way to stay warm and fill up.  This particular line is a nice way to do it and watch your points easily enough.
• We go to a store called Giant Eagle (much like Kroger or HEB or any other chain grocer) and like any chain grocer can have it's pricey items and it's discounted items.  In our neighborhood we also have an ALDI's which is a growing discount grocer.  Much of what they carry is off brand (which when we go to GE, we buy the store brand anyway) or no brand at a much (what we've been brain washed to believe anyway) discounted price.  We bounce back and forth between the stores because it's to our advantage to do so because ALDI's produce is WAY cheaper than anyone else's (before I forget, ALDI is a baby company of Trader Joe's.)  Anyway, moving on, produce is cheaper at ALDI than at GE as are a few other items yet I've been taking note that not all items are cheaper.  Now this is not to say that ALDI is more expensive, it's not.  I've just noticed that ALDI is priced the same as the other stores I go to.  Which was a HUGE eye opener to me.  So, keep your eyes peeled cheerleaders, if you're needing to stay on budget and only shop at one store, it may be wise to bounce a little bit.  I'm lucky in that the stores I shop are literally blocks from my house, so I'm not wasting gas running around looking for the best deal.  I find a good balance of what I need between the two stores.

Blasting in my ears right now...

Yeah I know it got a bit over played, but it's a catchy tune and well, let's face it, if it gets me moving, who cares how over played it is?  Right?

I love will.i.am and it's good to see Brit back on the scene happy and healthy and doing her thing.

Now I say we move!  Let's go!

Thursday Review

Today I wanted to give you a glimpse into what I consider a life saver for me. 

I get bored quite easily and search almost daily for ways to entertain myself and my taste buds.  This handy dandy contraption has been my go to and my life saver!

All I can say is what won’t it do?

The one thing I find that I do with it the most is make smoothies.  I buy an abundance of frozen fruit (being that it's the dead of winter, I miss my summer fruits, buying it frozen is the next best thing and it's just as good for you) and use it along with a cup of skim milk (the cup of skim milk is 2 points, the frozen fruit is zero points) and sometimes I’ll throw in a ½ cup of O.J. (2 points) and voila! I have this!

When I’m working long shifts I’ll blend in protein powder and leave out the O.J. (the protein powder…the one I use anyway is 1 or 2 points, it’s been a while since I’ve used it) and it will last the whole day. 

It cleans up like a dream, except for the occasional strawberry that wants to be a pain in the butt, then you just need to assemble the whole thing add in a little water and a drop or two of your dish detergent and blend it all up, then rinse.

For me, given the price (I got mine through QVC) I felt it was a steal.  It shreds ice in no time flat and can handle anything you want to blend up.  When going to write this, I noticed that they now offer regular blender options, which wasn’t available when I was making this purchase last year.  Should this one ever give up the ghost, I’ll be looking into one of those!

All of this yummyness and just FOUR points!!!

I hope that if you’re looking for a new smoothie maker/blender you find this review helpful!

A friend reminded me of this...

So as I go through this process I just need to remember to keep my head screwed on straight and know that it's for my health and not for the numbers.  Thanks Des.

Here's a little tip from your old pal...

When having to have a fasting lab draw...

Make sure that you actually REMEMBER that you're going to be getting it done one and two, don't try to wait too late in the day to compensate for the time (meaning if the last time you ate was around 11pm...remember that fudge?) and you're trying to hold off eating because of the fasting lab draw (fasting labs need to be done after a fasting of 10 - 12 hours of no eating) .... just reschedule.

Yeah, dumbass me, forgot last night that I was having the labs done today so I had my fudge last night.  While wonderful and delicious then, I'm paying for it now, lol.  So I've conceded defeat for this day, I've not given up the battle.  I'll just start my fast again tonight and make sure to not eat after 8pm.

Now to make sure that The Wonder One doesn't tempt me! lol

So it’s Wednesday

As can be expected, I’ve not gained….nor lost any weight in a day.

YaY!

Lol, however, I will say that The Wonder One and I last night finished off the last of his decadent fudge.  There wasn’t much after having filled five tins to be sent to the far reaches of where they need to go and he looks at me and says “You know, we should just go ahead and eat it all tonight, that way it’s done.”  Of course I let him twist my arm into it (ouch ouch ouch)  and we did as we watched Hugh Jackman in Wolverine *sighhhhhh* .  It was definitely a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed.  Which I did, knowing it would be a lonnngggg time before I’d be doing it again, which I can live with.

Today, I’m going to the lab to have blood drawn because next week I go back to the doctor for a follow up regarding my diabetes.

When this all started what I wanted was to get healthy.  If I lost weight and got slimmer in the process, well then, yay me!  But back then when I weighed in at my most (286 lbs) I was having to inject 80 units of insulin a day as well as take a plethora of oral medications.  Well, after having lost the weight I have, even with putting some of it back on, I’m down to 26 units of insulin a day! YAY me!  Being a type  II diabetic means a few things for me.  Getting the weight off means that I can possibly get off the medications, but I have to get the weight off first.  It’s a daily struggle, that being said, I have bad weeks.  There are times when I don’t take my meds at all. I’m working on that along with my weight.  It’s all a process.  

I will have considered myself successful if I can get to a manageable weight (note I said manageable?) that I can maintain for the rest of my life and be drug free from all of my diabetes medication at the same time.  

This is truly about getting healthy, whether I like it or not.

Now What?

I see on social media a lot of people who’ve taken to task the same chore…*ahem*…the same goal as I have.  To get healthy, I choose to say healthy because if I happen to lose weight in the process then HEY! All the better right?  After all, in order to remain healthy (and trimmer) in  the end, it’s a matter of making life changing habits that stick.  I think that’s why I didn’t gain all that much weight back (thank GOD!) considering it’s the holidays and The Wonder One has made his world famous fudge now on three separate occasions and well Aunt Flow has come to town.  Like I said previously, who’s to say how much of that 15 pounds is actual weight from being off plan for six months?

However, where do I go from here?

Before, when I was on my journey, I was on Weight Watchers, and I plan on staying on Weight Watchers.  I’ll tell you why.  Because, it DOES work.  Look at The Wonder One, he lost how much weight?  I’ve a lot more to lose then he did, he’s a man with more muscle mass and he was cross training in three sports.  So it only stands to reason, he hit his goal in no time flat.  If it were to be that I had the cardiovascular aptitude that he did to start with, rather than start at ground zero (which sadly, I am) then, I believe I would’ve had a better time of it early on.  Admittedly, I get frustrated easily.  So, I guess that’s where I need to just kick myself in the pants and suck it up.  

What I tell others, I need to listen to myself, no?  If I can be so forthright with my friends, I need to be so with myself.  I serve no purpose to no one if I can’t be so blunt and honest with myself.  So there ya have it folks, I just need to suck it the hell up. *sigh*

I will say that I am going to be following a more vegetarian way of eating.  My goal?  By the end of 2013, I’d like to be vegan.  I watched a documentary this weekend past while sick in bed called Vegucated.  If you’ve not seen it, I highly recommend it.  Although, use discretion, it’s not for the squeamish.

Just like before, I’ve not set limits or that anything to be taboo.  To do that is only setting yourself up for failure in my personal opinion.  Once you do that, those taboo items become a singular focus with laser precision and that’s all you can think about.  Instead they become the occasional goodie.  For example…The Wonder One makes incredible the most fudge, I don’t eat it all that often.  But when I do, I don’t feel guilty for it because of the fact that he doesn’t make it often and it’s a special treat when he does.  I will say however, this year he made more than he usually does so we had more than we usually do.  As always, it’s just about using your head and making smart decisions about what goes into your mouth.

Keeping track of what you eat is paramount.  When you stop doing that, that’s when you fall off track.  That’s how it came to be that I’ve been gone so long.  I stopped longing in to Weight Watchers and stopped keeping track of my points.  If you’re in the business of losing weight, you have to have to HAVE TO….I cannot stress this enough…you HAVE TO keep track of what you eat.  It’s like this…you didn’t keep track of what you put into your mouth and look where it got you?  If you don’t keep track of what you put into your mouth, how do you expect to get it off?

I’m just sayin’…

So that’s where I’m going from here.

Where are YOU going? How do you plan on getting there?  What are your goals and how do you plan on achieving them?

Picking up where I left off...

So here we are.  January 1^st of a new year.  Most people look at this as a time for a new beginning, a fresh start if you will.

Me?  Not so much.  I see this as a time to pick up where I left off.  I was in the middle of a good head of steam.  If you recall, I had lost 44 pounds and was doing well.  I had started at 286 pounds and gotten down to my lowest that I could recall since my daughter’s birth which to put it mildly is a very long time. 

So I had gotten down to 242 pounds, The Wonder One had gotten down to his goal weight and I fizzled.  I lost my mojo. I didn’t have my diet buddy, so to speak any longer.  I felt lost and abandoned and didn’t have that competitive gusto that I once did when he was losing weight with me.  So I went off plan.  

Thankfully I didn’t put back on all the weight I’d lost, only 15 pounds.  How much of that is truly weight I’d gained due to not eating properly or the holidays is anyone’s guess.  

I’d been tossing the idea around about picking the blog back up and I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she encouraged me wholeheartedly (thank you Karla) and The Wonder One has been poking the bear so to speak about it lately…..kindly of course, but gently letting me know…”Hey, I think this is something you should get back into.”

So, here I am. I thank you my cheerleaders for patiently waiting for my return.  For those who've not waited so patiently, I do so hope, I can get you back here to cheer me back on.  For those new to the cheering section...YaY! Thank you for coming in to help cheer me on, I'll need it.  I'll be there for you as well.  This cheerleading business is a two way street yanno!

So, I'm getting back into it…whatever “it” may entail.  I’m sure I’ll be adding to the cast of characters that is my life.  Not to mention a great bunch of friends and cheerleaders.  All of whom I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without.

So, here I go, better yet, here we go.

Ready or not,

Let’s roll….