Hello All!

Another Saturday, another weigh in. I am down 1 pound this week, for a total of 29. Do you know how much I wanted to get to my 30-pound weight loss today? A lot! Ugh. I started my period this week so that always wreaks havoc with the scale. I am sure that next week will be better but for now, at least the scale isn’t going up, as Gilbert pointed out. 😊

I made some good meals this past week so the meal planning was more successful. I can’t believe it is already October. The weather is definitely getting colder here as more and more of the trees begin to shed their leaves. Hunter got to his favorite park this morning so he was happy.

I found myself not being as careful as I was in the very beginning of the diet. I took a few bites of this and a few bites of that so I am really starting to watch myself once more. The tiny bites all add up in the end. It has been 9 weeks since I started this journey. I think that I just needed to re-focus. I have to start going back downstairs to my exercise bike. I haven’t been doing it as much as I should be.

During mid-week, we had a huge major event happen. My old cell phone was starting to hang up on people while I was talking to them and re-set itself randomly and with more and more frequency. Soooo, it was time and on Thursday a new phone arrived in the mail. I am not all that great with newer technology so you can only imagine how wonderful the set up and learning went between Gilbert and me. It wasn’t a harmonious household on Thursday evening at the Fournelle household but things improved and I really like the new cell phone now. Gilbert even bought me some ear buds that I can use with the cell phone so I can talk hands free and listen to my music. I like them a lot and I didn’t think that I would. We’ll see how week 10 goes and I sure hope that I can report my big 3-0 weight loss next week!!

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I am soooo excited. I worked Friday night so my normal weigh in is on Saturday mornings but it was a little messed up since I was up all night long and I really didn’t think it was all that accurate. So, after a full nights rest, I decided to get onto the scale this morning and guess what? Not only did I go down another bracket in the weight loss journey, I also received this message:

Down 10%

You’ve lost 10% of your body weight. This type of weight loss can have major benefits to your overall health—and that’s worth celebrating.

Whooo-hooo! This is what I’ve been working towards the hardest. Improving my health. Even with a rather challenging week, I still made progress. I would not be doing so great if it wasn’t for my husband’s help. He continues to search the internet for recipes and rubs that have no sugar and keeps making interesting meals that aren’t boring. I normally cook during the week nights but on the weekends, besides breakfast, it is normally Gilbert that is the chef. Progress, even slow, is still progress and I will celebrate the good milestones so they happen. I still a long way to go but I’m getting there, one bite at a time!

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This has been a challenging week. 

I’ve eaten out twice and had a few pot lucks at work as well. In fact, I was doing pretty well but we had a pizza party at work and I got two slices of pizza. The first piece was ok, nothing fantastic, but instead of just eating one, I ate the other piece too! Why? Sigh. Sometimes I feel like it is one step forward, two steps back. I didn’t eat all of the bread on the pizzas but I still ate both pieces.  Needless to say, I am almost out of my anytime points. Still, I tracked all my food and even when the point values have been high, I’ve kept going. As bad as the pizza incident was, I did great eating out yesterday. I had looked at the menu before, decided what I wanted to eat and when I got there, the waiter gave me an option of getting the lunch portion and I did. I ate char-grilled salmon with a mustard Dion sauce on the side, roasted red skin potatoes and julienne vegetable melody, with some decaf coffee and water with lemon. It was very good. I wasn’t hungry at the end but I still wished that I had gotten the dinner portion. I didn’t need the dinner portion and I wasn’t hungry, but my mind just wanted more. Isn’t that the way it goes sometimes, what we just want more. When I ate out on Saturday, I got what I wanted and split most of my food and took some leftovers home. I feel that both times eating out went well but I still need to be careful at those darn potlucks. They can sneak up and get up! 

We’ve eaten a lot of soup for dinner this week too with sandwiches.  I made a vegetable soup and then a white chicken chili. I need to make more food beside soup. Again, it takes planning and I haven’t been the best with what I wanted to cook in the evenings. I’ve been better with writing things down on my lists once again, so that has improved. Week 2 of no caffeinated diet drinks and all seems to be going ok with that. Gilbert mentioned to me that he stays a lot less thirsty now than before. I don’t see a huge difference but I haven’t gotten any headaches this week so I guess that is an improvement. I still drink coffee and sometimes I have two cups a day and we’ll drink unsweetened tea so there is still caffeine in our diets, just not near what it use to be. 
I have found that I really enjoy my cut up vegetable sticks that I’ve been making us. I always send them with Gilbert but rarely packed any for myself. I like to eat a small piece of Light Baby bell cheese with my veggie sticks in the afternoon for my afternoon break. I sometimes run out of time to chew all my vegetables so I normally finish them up on my car ride home in the afternoons. 

I couldn’t take it anymore and took a peak at the scale this morning. I was so very surprised. I reached my 25 pound goal! I am down 25.8 pounds to be exact. The scale was stuck for awhile but hopefully we are back on a steady weight loss numbers. I will keep you all posted on my progress and remember, watch out for potlucks, they can sabotage your diets in the blink of a pizza!! 

I have news, big, big news. I reached my very first goal that I had set when I started this journey at the beginning of August. Here it goes—I’ve gone for having to lose triple digits to double digits now! Yeah! I have less than 100 pounds to lose, 99.4 to be exact, but I no longer have 123 pounds to shed but 99.4.

I think that the true harsh reality has definitely set in that it is going to take awhile to reach my next goal, which is 199 pounds, to be in the “hundreds” once more. I also know that I haven’t abandoned my diet yet and I’m in week 7. I just think about all the vegetables that I’ve chopped, the meals that we’ve cooked, the recipes that I’ve tried—some good, some not to be repeated, and all the logging of my food that I’ve done and the water that I’ve drank. Even if I just lose a tiny amount each week, in a year, or two, it will all add up and I’ll get to my goal. I realized that there are so many more non-weight victories to celebrate each day and that keeps me centered and focused.

I know that there is probably another question on everybody’s mind. Did I cave and go for the diet Mt Dew? I am happy to report, day 6 and no diet drinks. What? I know. I’ve had two small headaches from caffeine withdrawals and I’ve felt tired some during the week but I didn’t go for the Diet Mt. Dew. I’ve worked some during the nights so I am thinking that has something to do with the tiredness factor but then again, I am fully aware how much I used caffeine as a crutch to get through my days. Of all the things to be addictive to, caffeine is by far one of the biggest for me. I like the carbonated waters that I bought but I am trying to limit those each day too and just stick with plain water, milk on occasion, and coffee. I do drink my coffee in the mornings and love it and in the evenings, I like to drink a cup of decaf coffee with I’m relaxing on the couch. We’ll see how week 2 works out going diet drink free.

I’ve taken Hunter to the park and I’ve done a little something each night, even if it is cleaning the kitchen or entering in my receipts and filing them, or a load of laundry. Big tasks haven’t really gotten accomplished this past week but that is ok. The house is still a lot cleaner than it has been and I’m fine with that. Overall, I’m happy with the past week and how things have gone. I’ll keep everybody updated.

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It has happened, my slowdown has begun. Sigh. I hit my first plateau. I know it was going to happen and I tried to prepare myself but I sure did love seeing the huge numbers falling off the scale. In the end, I decided to stop weighing myself every day and just weigh on Saturday morning for my weigh in. I ended up losing 1.5 pounds last week and it is a good amount of weight, but I’m so close to my first goal, I just want to get there. I’ll go with the same strategy for the upcoming week so I am not so discouraged from day to day and just see what the scale says next Saturday. As long as I stay on plan, I should be down at least something.

But, I look around and I am still sitting in a relatively clean house, laundry all caught up, veggies and fruit washed and pre-packaged and a happy doggie at my feet. We went walking early this morning since it is supposed to start raining this afternoon. I can see significant progress so that is a plus. It has been 5 weeks now, since I started really trying to diet and change things up. My house is cleaner than it has been in months so that is a huge plus.

I’ve read the recent reports out on pop, soda, Coke, whatever you choice to call it in your neck of the woods, and the overwhelming conclusion is that is bad for you. I guess that I sort of knew that it wasn’t all that great for you but we still guzzled it down. It is called Diet Pop up in this area of the world. I cut it all out once, almost a year ago or so when I did the Whole 30 for a month to see if I was truly allergic to dairy (which I’m thankfully not). So, DRUM ROLL PLEASE….in the spirit of Health, Gilbert and I have decided to cut out the soda, regular and diet alike. We are drinking flavored carbonated waters now, when we want something other than regular water. I bought some La Croix and Spellegrino at Costco. So far, I like all the flavors and I haven’t missed the Diet Mt Dew—or as I refer to it as the Nectar of the Gods, he-he-he. I am sure that I’ll go through withdrawals soon enough. Once I have it out of my system, I think that once in a while, as a treat or when we are out for a party, I’ll partake in the occasional diet drink but for now, I’m going to avoid it. This is a big, big, big step for me.

I sort of like my guard down a little on my lists and guess what? I’ve forgotten to pick up the things that I needed, so, once again, when I think of things that I’m out of or running low on, I try and open up my app, My groceries.com and put it in.

Since the weather has been so nice outside, I’ve been trying to get out to the park and walk. I like getting the fresh air and Hunter absolutely loves going to the park. He is so happy in his favorite place in the whole wide world. Soon, it will come a time when the basement gets utilize more. The weather will not be as nice, the ice and snow will come, and I’ll want to hibernate but for now, I’ll get outdoors and enjoy the fall weather.

Gilbert got home safe and sound and Hunter was absolutely thrilled to have both of us back his normal routine restored. I have found that I really like cooking with Gilbert in the evenings. I usually prepare the veggies and Gilbert normally grills the meat. We work well together and it is fun cooking and then cleaning up the kitchen, while Hunter anxiously awaits at the front door for his evening walk. We discuss our day and unwind while cooking a healthy meal. Sometimes, it works out that Gilbert is home later or if he gets stuck in traffic, I’ll do the entire meal but mostly, we tend to cook together. Spices, laughter, and chopped veggies usually fly around the kitchen, while Hunter stays close by to sample whatever falls onto the floor. We have recently became roasting veggies in the oven and they have turned out great. They are so tasty that way. I am not sure why I haven’t done more of this before. I even cut up okra, yellow squash, zucchini, a sweet onion, a potato and two jalapeno peppers. I dusted them with some corn meal and roasted them and they turned great, yum-yum.

We went to a party and although I used over half of my anytime points, I still managed to stay on plan. I did pretty well with my eating and enjoyed myself. I would do a few things differently for the next party but you live and learn, right? I logged in all my food and didn’t over do it. I have another pot luck at work this upcoming week and plan on sticking to my original plan of enjoying one dessert. We’ll see what else the upcoming week throws at me. I’ll keep all updated on my progress. It should be interesting, day 1 of no Diet Mt. Dew. I wonder how I’ll be doing on day 7?

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Hello All! It has been 4 long days without the scale budging. Not up, not down—the exact same number. Sigh. I don’t like plateaus. I know in the end, all will work out but I sure did like seeing positive results each day, even if it was just a .2 loss. 

I feel like now the diet/new way of life really starts. The shiny new has worn off the diet, but I am staying the course. I haven’t faltered and “fallen off the band wagon”. I even have another potluck under my belt. Instead of having dessert this time around, I decided on some pretzel thins to eat with my sandwich that I had brought in for lunch. I don’t feel like I missed out and I feel satisfied. I think that is something that I’m still learning, how to feel fully satisfied with my food choices and compromises. 

I am doing a lot better with projects around the house. I even managed to catch up on my ironing, which I was very behind in. I ironed over a couple of days and finally got it all caught up. Gilbert’s been gone so Hunter and I have been enjoying walks at the park, although I didn’t take him yesterday and he pouted all evening long. Gilbert returns tomorrow afternoon and Hunter will be so happy to see him. 

I started getting into the same routine of eating the same thing and I was just starting to get bored so I switched things up. I made a new recipe for breakfast, stuffed peppers with egg, bacon and cheese that turned out pretty well. I am making sure that I continue searching out new recipes and making them a few times a week. I feel like boredom will lead to bad decisions on my part and I want to keep things fresh. 

I hope to report on my first huge milestone very soon, I’m just a few pounds away! I’ll keep you posted! 

A new month and I am still doing Weight Watchers. The anytime points really do make is a lot easier to stay on plan. You truly can eat whatever you want but if you want your points to last and make sure you aren’t hungry every hour, then it behooves you to use your points wisely and cook using fresh veggies, fruits and lean meats. I didn’t want to go into this new weight loss with the idea of just losing weight. I truly want to change our diet so when the weight is off, then we are already in the habit of eating the way we should be.

I still think that I’m learning portion control. Let’s face it, if I knew about portion control, I wouldn’t look like I do right now. Sometimes when I am eating, I just have to stop. I feel full! Say what? I put the food away and if I get hungry, then I eat the rest. Otherwise, I just eat it the next day for meals.

I am buying way too much fruit. It just looks so good and even when you have a coupon and your cantaloupe ends up costing you only 40 cents, you really don’t need 2 cantaloupes in your house for just two people. Luckily, Hunter likes cantaloupe so we are eating through the fruit but I will definitely scale back the fruit this week when I grocery shop. I am doing a lot better with buying fresh veggies and not letting them go to waste. I am trying to plan out meals and buy what goes with the meal.

Gilbert’s away so instead of really doing a ton of housework, I’ve been taking Hunter to the park in the afternoons and walking. It tires him out and I like being outdoors with the fantastic fall weather right now. I did vacuum and mop both the upstairs and downstairs over the weekend. The house looks pretty good right now. I feel like I’m doing a better job with keeping up with the housework.

Well, what about the weight huh? I know you might be wondering so drum roll please….I’m down 20 pounds! Yup, the big 2-0. One pound at a time!

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This morning while we were walking at the park, I looked up and saw that some of the trees were starting to turn colors already. Fall is a bittersweet time for me. I love the weather and the leaves and everything that comes with it, but then I cringe thinking of the snow that will soon be upon us. I don’t enjoy the winters here or the snow, at all. Ugh. I guess tomorrow is September 1^st so whether or not I’m ready, I guess the trees will continue to turn.

I worked for a few hours last night and came home. The boys waited up for me. We all crawled into the bed and snuggled in and slept great all night long. While I drove into work, I ate an apple as a snack. Given just a few weeks ago, an apple wouldn’t had been my choice of food. Small changes are starting to make a big impact. I’m down another pound for a total of 17 pounds now in the month of August. I would call that pretty successful.

I do still get impatient. I just want all the weight off now but I know that it didn’t just come on overnight and it will take about a year to lose it but patience isn’t my virtue. I have to just keep grabbing my paperclip chain and reminding myself that I am doing well and that the weight is coming off.

There are always potlucks at my work and they are rather elaborate at times. I do love helping celebrate the good times—the marriages, the babies and even the retirements. There is just too much sadness in life not to rejoice in the happy events. I like to make brownies to bring in and folks seem to enjoy them. I didn’t want to jeopardize my progress but I also wanted to participate in the potluck. Dilemma time for sure.

So, what happened? I decided to allow myself one dessert. I had the anytime points to use and I made sure that my breakfast and lunch were healthy and low in points (which isn’t very hard as long as you are eating fresh fruit and vegetables and lean meat). I looked over the huge spread twice and there were lots of contenders but Mike won out with his homemade strawberry lasagna. I cut a regular sized piece, not too big but not too small, and I enjoyed every single bite. Yummy! It was absolutely delicious. I didn’t deny myself but I also didn’t go crazy and keep eating. I was very happy and even if I hadn’t lost a single pound this week, this was a pretty big step in the right direction for me. This is what WW use to call a “non-scale victory” and a victory it was indeed!

I can’t see many results just yet in my clothes (remember the whole x-large sized scrubs not fitting me yet??), or even in my face or body just yet so sometimes motivation is a little bit hard. However, I was going up the stairs yesterday and I noticed that guess what? My knees weren’t hurting me like they had been. In fact, as I raced up the stairwell last night at work after surrendering my car keys to the valet, I thought to myself, I’m actually going up the stairs pretty quickly and nothing hurts! Not bad, not bad at all. Even if I can’t see the results, I can certainly FEEL them and that is pretty amazing since I’m just on week 3.

My husband, Gilbert, has been amazing this past week. He cooked a few times for us and made sure that I put on my tennis shoes and that we took Hunter to the park during the week. We went both Thursday and Friday and were back this morning. Hunter doesn’t complain at all. He loves the extra walks and is perfecting his quick maneuvers to get the bicyclists to get off the trail. He can’t stand the bikes; they get on his last nerve. He tries to go perpendicular and run them off the trail. We have to keep a sharp eye out to make sure that his evil plan isn’t executed. I told him that we have to share the road but he doesn’t think so. He has been sleeping well at night and snores loudly.

Our old grill rusted out and finally died. We grilled it to death, literally. There is no saving it so Gilbert found one on clearance at Costco. It is actually a wood pellet grill that acts like a smoker. For the inaugural first usage, Gilbert grilled a pork rack and it turned out fantastic. He found a rub that didn’t use any sugar so the point value was zero.  He is keeping me on track and keeps helping me stay the course. Our motto is that this isn’t just another diet, when the weight is off, I want to keep eating this way. It is truly a lifestyle change.

We’ll see what week #4 holds! I am sure it will be interesting. I hope that everybody has a great Labor Day weekend. I am thoroughly enjoying my 3 day weekend so far.

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Drum roll please….I’m down 16 pounds as of today! 

Is it super easy? Not really but I can say that it isn’t super hard either. It takes a lot of planning and I’m talking A LOT and I am making more and more lists and remembers to both update them and check them once I go somewhere. Have I slipped up a little? Sure. I’m still figuring things out but I can say that I do feel healthier, even if it is only in my mind. 

I went to try on the next sized down in scrubs and my self confidence was completely shaken and my little balloon of pride got burst. They still don’t fit. Now mind you, my work in its infinity wisdom goes from an x-large to a 3-X. There isn’t any sizes in-between. I would guess that I need a 1x right now. The 3x is falling off of me, literally. Two people have asked me about my clothing selection and I’ve had to tell them that the next size doesn’t fit yet, making it rather awkward for the both of us. Oh well, what are you going to do? I’ll just keep sticking to the program and hopefully one day soon the x larges fit again. 

I am ready for the long weekend. Believe it or not, the front two flower beds got weeded over the weekend. It looks so great. I re-claimed my birdie patio that Gilbert built for me last year. Gilbert helped weed, otherwise, I don’t think that either one of the beds would be done by now. We’ll continue with the weeding, only 5 more beds to go but who is counting? The weather is supposed to be perfect so I don’t mind working outside with the nicer weather. The humidity broke over the weekend and it was absolutely perfect outside. Hunter was the only one complaining about having to be outside for the weekend. He wanted to go indoors. 

I wasn’t feeling the housework thing on Monday evening but I decided that I would rather push the vacuum cleaner than get on the treadmill or the exercise bike. I vacuumed the entire upstairs and it looks good. I finished up the vacuuming and did the downstairs last night. I battled with the spiders, yuck. Hunter barked the entire time that I was vacuuming and would go to the back door to see if Gilbert was home yet so he could complain about me. He wasn’t very excited about the housework yesterday. I am still playing catch-up on the things that I want to get accomplished but the list is getting shorter and shorter.

Hope everybody is having a good week, at least it is the middle of the week! 

I opened up the mail today and had a nice surprise. Weight Watchers sent me a key ring and a charm that said 5 pounds and one that said 10 pounds. I opened up the third envelop and it said “congrats on reaching goal” with a gold charm with a fake diamond in it. Gilbert started laughing as I was examining the package, trying to figure out what it was for. I think he was laughing at my face. I must have looked pretty perplexed. I told Gilbert that what is WW trying to tell me? Congrats on being fat?? I guess I reached that goal really well huh? Ugh. As I thought about it, I think that the rewards are populated by the info you put in when you first register on-line. I am not so hot with technology—I know, surprised eh? Sooooo, it must have something to do with how I registered. I will have to go back into my profile and see if I can find anything.

Today was my weigh in day and I am down 14 pounds so far. I am excited! 14 whole pounds, it is working!! All the prep, cutting, shopping, cooking, and logging in food is paying off! I am pretty happy to see results. I am trying to change my habits so that when I am at my true goal weight and not an imaginary WW goal weight, I will still be wanting to eat the way that I’m eating. We normally have lunch out on Saturdays but I fixed us a nice breakfast this morning and we took Hunter to his park early. He got all sorts of good sniffs. We came home and showered and then headed out to run some errands. We both got much needed haircuts and got to the shops that we wanted to go to. Instead of eating out, we came home and Gilbert fixed us a wonderful salad. It was so good.

After lunch, since the weather is absolutely beautiful here this weekend, Gilbert and I went out into the flower bed and weeded. We got the entire right flower bed weeded, which was a lot. This flower bed has my 5 bird feeders in it so there are lots of weeds to be pulled. Our neighbor dogs helped us pull weeds and Hunter complained bitterly the entire time and tried to catch my birds when they flew by. When he gets mad at me, he goes outside and tries to catch my little birdies. He is something else. Everybody survived and I’m glad that at least one bed is done. One down and 5 more to go, but who is counting??

We’ll see if my weight loss continues on week 3. I will take it once day at a time!

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