the Yo-yo of weight loss

So this week I lost 0.6 lbs. (when I hopped on the scale this morning, I lost another pound-but after the rest of the day, I doubt that "stayed," lol).

 (Yellow piggy bank says hello- I see his adorable yellow self every weigh in- as he sits on the shelf in our yellow bathroom where my scale is also, lol)

Right now my weight loss is so Yo-Yo. One week I do great, the next week I do horrible and gain back what I lost. Now, right now I'm hovering back and forth around my original goal weight. I'm having such a hard time getting past that weight. I guess that is ok, since technically it was my goal, but I still have that last 10-15 that would be my Ideal weight.
I don't know, maybe I'm just not ment to be that weight, unless I decide to do some major "working out."- which I HATE. But who knows, maybe next week will be different. lol

 I tried the Skinny Girl California White wine. Not bad, but a lot more dry than I enjoy.


This week my hubs and I tried the Weight Watchers pre-portioned chicken, and had it with rice in a ginger sauce. It was super fab and super low points. I must say, it was so nice to already know what the points were for the chicken and not have to weight it all out.

Other new things in weight loss land- discovered faux ice cream. Check out the recipe post over at my other blog here for the "Banana So-called ice cream."
It was tasty.

Also tried a new healthy Choice steamer dinner tonight, and I must say it was AWESOME! Who new that carrots, rice, chicken, pineapples and sauce would be so tasty?

I also aquired this lovely dress at the SalVal, while shopping for my dress for our 1980s Prom birthday bash. (I got that dress too, but I'm not showing it off till the actual party- don't want any spoilers!- as I say in my best River Song/Dr. Who voice)

I am planned to wear it to the banquet for the New Jersey Press Association Awards, where I scored a 2nd place in Business page design and a 3rd place in Illustration/Graphics. I might pair it with black shoes/jewelry and my black balero mini jacket, as I hate bare shoulders on me. lol

It has been so cold this month, I am looking forward to SPRING!!
Anyways, have a great weight loss week all!
-M

The final countdown... being 0.2 lbs from my goal weight

Ok. Firstly, I am happy to announce I lost another 1.6 lbs this week (and 1 lb last week, forgot to report). This means I am down 61.8 lbs total since October (it is now August) and 0.2 lbs from my goal weight of 150. Once I hit that, I will continue to keep up the losses, but if I bounce up and down around 150 lbs weight, I will be extremely happy, and not be as crazy about the weight loss as I have been.
I was surprised I lost as much as I did, considering that I ate horribly the final days of our theater production (which is now done), and ate a decent amount over my points the day before my weigh in.
Here are the current numbers:

My biggest boost over the week was on Monday I did a lot of stuff around town. First had a dentist appointment (where the dental hygienist comment how thin I was since last I was there in February.) I then had time to pick up a quick bit of lunch. I got me the super healthy 8 points plus meal at Panera Bread: standard turkey sandwich (no cheese) -half with a half- chicken noodle soup, apple and water. I was proud of how healthy I was, considering I'm in love with their breads, I resisted from the high point valued ones.

I then however was tempted by the frozen yogurt place that was 2 doors down, Bliss Yogurt Bar. I've never been to any of these yogurt bars, but decided to try it, but load up on the fruit. I got 1/3 dulche de leche frozen yogurt, 2/3 of the low-fat original creamy frozen yogurt with lots of mangoes and a few marshmallows for a tiny sweetness on top. I asked for the nutritional info, but since they were newly opened, they didn't really have it except the calories for the yogurts. They said the dulche de leche frozen yogurt was 35 calories per oz and 3.5 g of fat. The low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt was 23 calories per oz.

After all of this I was super full, but had to go to my final dress fitting for my bridesmaid dress for a friend's wedding. It fit nicely after she shortened it and my new strapless bra worked great with it- no need for the corset in this dress!

Then I wandered around the one mall till my friend (the bride) was done with work and I stopped by NY & Co. I was in desperate need of a new belt- since that's the only real way to show off I have a thinner waist now without buying an entirely new wardrobe. I headed straight to the sales rack and a pair of white Capri caught my eye. They only had a size 10, so I thought, what the heck, lets see if they fit. Up to this point, recently I've been wearing 12s. When I first started my weight loss journey back in October I was a since 18 (sometimes 16). I tried them on and tada! They fit nicely! They had to come home with me.
I mentioned to the one worker at the store if those on the rack were the only belts they had. She pointed me in the direction of a large jar at the counter of more belts (70% off too). I started chatting with her and divulged that I was in need of a new belt to show off my recent weight loss. After talking about weight watchers and losing 60+ lbs she said "I think we have more belts in the back. Let me get them and see if we can't find you a dream belt". She brings out this huge box of 70% off belts. I found 3 that I really liked- 1 gray, 1 red, and 1 black. They all have that elastics back, so the size really stretches nicely to whatever size you are. I also ended up getting a skirt besides the Capri and belts, but overall it made me super confident in my weight loss.

After my friend, I, and her sister-in-law enjoyed massages, we ate at this lovely place, Pandini's, where I had a chicken pesto labretti, (below) which was amazing. I've been in this pesto kick for some reason!

Another thing I found out, Saltwater Taffy.... Yeah- this kind (below)...

is 1 points plus per piece... I LOVE taffy, and being we are only an hour or 2 away from the jersey shore, my co-workers have been bringing it back to the office in loads. So after researching the nutrition on the back of the one box, For the most part, saltwater taffy is 1 points plus per taffy piece. Crazy! (could be worse though)

This week I've also been having a lot of soup at work. I cleared out our pantries this weekend and decided to try and pack a meal for work only from items we already have in the pantry- which means lots of soup and rice. So many of the Progressive soups are super boring and all broth, that by adding some brown rice, it kicked it up and made a hearty dinner at work. However after 3 days in a row of soup and rice, I was glad to get to the grocery store. lol

Lastly the hubs picked me up some Weight Watchers ice cream sandwiches and he found some new lean cuisines I've never tried before- who knew sending your husband to pick up your "essentials" would mean trying new things. So here is the cherry cheesecake weight watchers ice cream sandwich. Only 2 points plus!

Anyways, I can't believe I'm so close to my goal. I'll have to do a side by side if I make it next week, which to be honest, not sure if that will happen or not- had a crummy day yesterday and tomorrow is my wedding anniversary (wine certainly), but who knows... I do tend to lose weight when I have wine. lol
Happy losses!
M

A little closer and cute dresses

So today I weighed in and had lost another 1.4 lbs this week! Hooray! I made up for my last week's ickyness, so I'm back on track with things and with a new low daily point value (however, I can't go any lower in daily points anymore, so if I get in a rut, I'll just need to exercise more or something- I hope it doesn't come to that though!)
Anyways, this week has been super milestone and eye-opening. So I'm done a total of 55.8 lbs total since October. I have only 6.2 lbs left to lose till my goal, so I'm super happy to be closing in on my goal weight. I might continue down to 140 lbs if I feel like it, but once I hit that awesome 150, I'm singing to the heavens and not going to cry if I don't lose any more once I reach that goal.
So some things that really made me go "whow" this week in my weight loss journey.
1) On Sunday I decided to wear a sundress- I hadn't worn a dress in a while, so I thought- it's a nice day, and I need to look nice for the promo shots being taken later in the day for the show I'm in, so what the heck, let me put on a dress I haven't worn in over a year. So I pulled out this blue and white dress. I just so happened to have worn that exact dress to my friend's wedding last October (the very week I started Weight Watchers), so I thought- "I should get the hubs to photograph me in this dress and I'll do a side by side of me in it at my friend's wedding and me now." I mostly wanted to do it because I distinctly remember looking at those pictures from their wedding and thinking to myself "damn I'm such a hefer!" So, here is the side by side- the first was last October, and the second was on Sunday. (and 2 close up shots afterwards)

Now I am down almost a pound from that, as I'm at 156.2 lbs this morning, but close enough. Crazy to see how you look in less than a year when you actually try to lose weight. Crazy!!!
I also started packing today for my trip to CHA on Sunday through Thursday, so I threw 2 sundresses in the suitcase after trying them on. They look so much better on than how I remember them before. haha!

2) I've become a fan of beer, finally. I know what you're thinking- You're on a diet, why the heck would you get into beer now? Well, I guess I just never really liked most beers, then on a whim I decided to order a Heineken light bottle of beer, and now, once a week I try to allow myself 1 beer (right now it is Heineken light that I order all the time). For some reason I like it, I don't know why, but I do. I don't think I normally would ever say that, but maybe it is the summer talking, but man, sometimes you just want a freak'n beer! haha

3) I wore a 2-piece bikini for the first time in over 5 years. It isn't extremely skimpy- it has a cute heart skirt that goes over the bottoms and the top is a halter bikini, so it holds me up a little better. But either way, I still have not worn it in over 5 years. So how did I get the courage to wear said bikini? Well, we got invited to go swimming with friends at our friend's pool at night and the hubs convinced me to go and to wear "that" suit. I thought, what the heck, its at night and only with 3 other friends (all girls mind you) so I'm not going to be embarrassing myself as much (also no one took a single picture that night, so no dreaded icky bathing suit pictures exist.) Anyways, so I got to the pool and mentioned it was the first time wearing the suit in over 5 years, and my friends reply, "why? It looks great on you!" And that just made my week- being able to wear a 2-piece bathing suit and not feel like a hippo. I'm not 100% comfortable in it yet, but boy is it a step in the right direction.

4) Lastly, I have come to LOVE my restaurant app through iTrackBites for the iphone. It makes ordering at chain restaurants so easy! Especially since my buds love to eat at Applebee's and I'm getting tired of ordering the weight watchers meals (since the below parm-chicken and vegs and rice is kind of my go-to meal there, however I'm tired of ordering the same thing all the time). Just saying how technology has made my weight loss journey SO much easier.

(Also, they now make the LARGE diet snapple half 'n'half bottles, so I am super happy to have that at home as well as my water and diet cherry dr. pepper. Hey, a girl's gotta have variety!)

I also was able to restrain myself from eating any of the donuts that were brought in for our co-worker's b-day or any of the goodies brought in for anniversaries at the company this past week. Whenever there is food around the office, I immediately head to the fruit and vegs tray, and if there is none of those, I bypass it all together. I'm to the point where the food is not worth the points, so better to be good, than to have to starve or not lose at all in the week because you wanted that HUGE piece of cake that you didn't totally like in the first place. However, someday I hope to come up with a recipe for a low-fat, low-points plus ice cream cake- because I LOVE that stuff. lol
Anyways, happy weight loss and I am closing in on the goal! yippie!
M

Trucking along...

Down another 1.6 lbs this week. So that makes me down 47.4 lbs since October. I'm nearing the 50 lbs mark!

Here's my numbers:

Other than the usual, I tried my hardest to not use any weekly points (only my exercise), since I still haven't dropped my daily points yet- I can't bring myself to do it.
Though on a happy note, I am able to get into most size 12 jeans- got two pair at the SalVal during the week, so I don't spend a fortune on clothes I'm going to grow out of.
Also, my friend's sister (another bridemaid in her wedding) got the wrong size and needed bigger, so we hoped we could swap dresses since mine was way too big- sure enough, hers fits like a glove (might need a tiny bit taken out at the top, since I'm top heavy compared to her) but overall, the waist portion fits beautiful- still need it shortened though. It made me super happy to try that one and see what the dress is supposed to look like, instead of swimming in the dress everytime.
Speaking of swimming, it is starting to be summertime, so I'm going to try on my swimsuits tonight and see if they look better, or if I have to get a new one. who knows...I hate swimsuits, so hopefully it goes alright.
Happy weight loss all. I'll leave you with a picture from my photo a day project- the prompt was, "Something that makes you happy" which for me is big sunglasses and pearls. :D

later all.
-M