The Ups and Downs of dieting while doing theater

Firstly, I apologize for being so slow to getting a new post up. Since we open in a week with our production of "The Music Man" I've had little time to do anything but do theater stuff or work.
So I'll start it off with, I lost a pound this week (on Tuesday). If my scale keeps it up, I hope I will lose more this coming Tuesday as well if I can help it.
However I was very surprised I actually lost a pound, considering the gigantic cupcake and yummy goodies I had at my friend Cat's Bridal Shower. I mean, look at this wonderful Vanillabean cupcake! (I have a Dulche de leche one waiting for me in the fridge, but I can't bring myself to eat it by myself, so I'm waiting to share it with my hubs).

 (vanilla bean cupcake)

 (dulche de leche cupcake)

 (the bride to be, Cat and me)

 (some of the amazing food spread displayed on my fun array of cake stands!)

 (more food- tarts, apricot things and cucumber sandwich things)

 (these were quite amazing- apricots, goat cheese, and nuts)

(The redish orange dress I wore to the bridal shower. I picked it up when I lost about 45 lbs just for this occasion, so luckily it tightens around the waist, so it still looks fab, if I do say so myself)

Doing theater is so difficult on my diet. Why? Because theater people (ok, community theater people) like to go out to eat after practice. We are all too tired to pack lunches before or cook dinner after practice, so going out to eat is easier- and more fun to hang out with your castmates. Going to diners and chain restaurants that stay open late becomes a weekly thing. So I've been having to be VERY careful in what I order- so as not to break the bank or my diet.
Here are some highlights of my meals since I got back from my CHA trip.

 (This has become my staple if we go to a few of the places- quiche and soup)

 (board meeting bbq- so difficult to give into hot dogs and hamburgers. I think I broke down and had a single burger, but then had lots of fruit)

 (Gigantic zucchini co-worker gave me. We turned it into many loaves of bread-below)

 (zucchini bread!)

 (had a glass of wine on Saturday evening. I gave into temptation)

 (my hubs does makes some of the best pizza. It's all in the crust)

 (nom nom nom)

 (screen shot from my restaurant app- I decided to go with the create your own pasta at the Macaroni Grill with my friend. It totally helped me stay within the points I had saved for that meal)

 (I ended up having wheat pasta with chicken and spinach in the spicy pomodoro sauce- was 17 points plus for the entire dish, I had half there and half left over for another meal)

 (At Denny's. You can get fruit with their slim breakfast items- I was missing fruit for the day, so I actually asked for a second fruit cup later in the meal! Helped fill me up when my slim omelette with 2 strips of turkey bacon didn't do the trick).

 (my numbers for this week)

 (Last night's dinner at the Diner. Beef stew over egg noodles and green beans on the side after a salad. I actually was so full- This wasn't too bad of a meal, lots of vegs. Not the best meal point wise, but I was really tired of salads and soup. It kind of looks gross, but it was pretty good tasting.)

I also was surprisingly getting slightly more comfortable in my 2-piece bathing suit. I was invited over to my friend's house to go swimming, so again the bathing suit issue came up. I just sucked it up and put the 2-piece on and prayed that I didn't look too balloon-ish in it. Luckily it was so darn hot and the pool was so nice that I forgot all about my insecurities long enough to enjoy the pool. I would show you a picture, but I don't want those floating around the inter-webs (as my friend calls it).

(This was taken during the promo shoot for the second Music Man promo- taken by our assistant stage manager Natalie. It's become one of my favs, since normally I don't like pictures of myself, it is nice to have one that you actually like. haha)

Anyways, I am hoping to keep up the good losses this week, as I am working tonight, tomorrow and Saturday, so I have to pack my meals accordingly. *crossing fingers* for another good loss of a week and the next time I post will probably be either during or after tech (hell) week for the show. *squee!*
Oh, and for those that care, here is another promo for our show, this one with me singing in the beginning. :D

Later.
-M

Traveling is the most difficult thing to do while on a diet

So I finally got to go to the Craft and Hobby Association Conference in Chicago (semi-vacation). However, let me tell you. That was the roughest I've ever had thus far on this diet- all the food at the airport was either A) bad for you  or B) expensive  or C) both.  Then while at the conference, their food was the same way. I think I ate soup and salads 90% of the time! My mom and I (she is also on Weight Watchers) actually walked to the Aldi's down the street from our hotel JUST so we could pick up some fruit, jello, and fruit frozen bars- so we would have at least SOMETHING on our diet.

 (I drank water the entire trip- except one time I did get a margarita, but other than that, water with lemon please!)

 (3 bean soup. It was good, but after having soup and/or salad all trip, I was glad to get some more sustenance by the end of it).

 (Somehow managed to enjoy vegs and chicken (stuffed with spinach and feta))

By the 4th day of my trip, I was so tired of salads that I broke down and ate pesto tortellini with chicken in cream sauce at this italian restaurant that we got invited to go to with 2 ladies we met while at the conference (they were so sweet to take us! They don't know how much it ment to us). It was so delicious, I didn't care how many weekly points I was wasting on that dish, because it was so good.

 (most amazing pesto pasta!)

Surprisingly enough, when I got home, I weighed in on Friday (my weigh ins are normally on Tuesdays, so I was a few days late) and I had only gained 0.4 lbs. *phew* I'll take less than a 1/2 a pound gained during my trip. I can deal with that. I was fearing it would be worse. Since I dropped down to 26 points plus, I've had such a difficult time having just that- I usually can eat and feel full at 28 points plus. I guess that means I gotta do some more exercise.

(Lunch today: quiche and soup.)

(Co-worker gave me HUGE zucchini from his garden- time to make some yummy foods from it!)

 Hopefully I'll be getting plenty of exercise with practices for our show ramping up in full speed. We open August 9th, so we are dancing pretty much every practice now. (and boy do my calves feel it after dancing in character shoes all day). Here is the promo for the musical. I'm Marian the Librarian (pink top, black skirt).

Stay tuned for another promo (featuring just me singing a part of "Goodnight my Someone". Hopefully this show keeps me in check by exercise, since packing lunches/dinners is very hard with the theater group- we all like to go out to eat after practices and shows. *crossing fingers* for a better week. However I already was bad today- tortellini got me again! Eek!

 (bad bad bad)

Here's to hoping I have a better weight loss week.
later.
-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

Wonky Week

Ok, so on my "official" weigh in, I gained 2.2 lbs (I blame the ice cream I had the day before). However, I hopped on the scale today (Thursday, so 2 days later) and had lost those 2.2 lbs to put me back at what I was the week before. So I'm going to take this week as a lesson, and hope that for the next 5 days I can lose something!
It's been a busy week as usual, since we are well into practices for the show and we are getting to the point where there is little time. Luckily however, the 4th of July happened in the middle of the week to give us a break from pretty much everything.

The hubs made this wonderful sour-cream casserole, 10 points plus for 1/4 of the casserole dish. Perfect!

For 4th of July we enjoyed margaritas and buffalo chicken dip at our one friend's place and chatted the night away with fellow friends while watching Dr. Who. (Yes, we are super geeks).

Lastly, while at a restaurant after practice on Tuesday, I had a beer. If you know me, you know I am NOT a beer person. But for some reason, I had 3 spare points and I really felt like one. So I got a light Heineken. I had never had one, but it was the only non-crappy brand in Light. Afterwards I thought to myself, "I actually liked that!" Who knew!? haha

Anyways, lesson learned- do NOT give into the temptation if you don't want to pay for it weigh in day. Aka, don't give into this:

I MUST be good the rest of the week, otherwise I'll start getting in a downward spiral. I am so close to that goal, but I gotta keep with it.
It's funny, so many people I know have started Weight Watchers lately, that it doesn't feel weird talking about it anymore. Even my boss started it!
Anywho, I MUST do good this week!
Happy weight loss all.
-M

trucking towards my goal

Ok, so I'm writing this on Saturday (so over mid-ways through my next week), however this past week (on Tuesday) I had lost 2.4 lbs! Hooray! Making total loss at 54.4 lbs.
However, I forewarn you, I can't guarantee that this week will be as good- I blame the dreaded Friendly's ice cream.
See this:

This is my my weakness- peanut butter ice cream, shared among friends. I couldn't pass it up. I've been SOOOO good for so many months, it was just CALLING my name. So if I gain or don't lose anything, this is why.

As far as other things, I have come to realized it is so darn tough to find healthy within my point values at restaurants. Chain foods- easy, I have an app for that- the ITrackBites app I use to track my points came out with a $1.99 restaurant guide app here, and I couldn't pass it up. So far it has been SUPER helpful. These are my cheap knockoff Weight Watchers apps that I've been using since November, as I can't afford the monthly fee for Weight Watchers online. Basically I just take what I learned from the 10 weeks I went to meetings (and whatever my mom tells me about her meetings) and do everything else with the above two apps. So far it's worked great for me. But the hardest part is family owned restaurants that you don't have nutritional information on...you have to guess- and for me, I SUCK at guessing- because I never guess correctly- I'm usually way off in either direction. Either way too many points or way too little. That's why as much as I'd like to eat at these more often, I never am sure of what I downed.

With the show, we have practices 4 times a week- this makes meal time difficult, as we 90% of the time want to go out to eat afterwards (either because it is super late when we get home, or we need to kill time before I have to head to work on the Saturday rehearsals.). This means, money spent more often at restaurants and much harder to be healthier. But we're trying our hardest to order cheaply all the while being health- means LOTS of water with lemon and LOTS of salads (*tears- I hate salads all the time).

 Though this beef vegetable soup and spinach quiche was AWESOME from Isaac Newton's in Newtown.

The other problem with this week- battling a sinus infection. Yeah, I know what you're thinking...AGAIN!? I agree- I feel like I'm sick all the time. After this one goes away, I'm making an appointment with my family doctor (I went to the minute clinic for this as it was over last weekend it started to get bad) and telling them they NEED to test me for allergies or something- this singer's voice can't handle all the phlem!

Anyways, had a good loss week. Tried on my corset from my wedding and it was too big!- It had the hooks on the back, and I would probably need to get a tighter row added if I was to wear it. yay! I also tried on my outwear corsets I used to wear in college, and they fit- I had to loosen the back a tiny bit, but that's at least a start.

*crossing fingers* for an ok week.
M

two week updates

Sorry I didn't update last week (I only lost 0.2 lbs the week I forgot to post, so not a lot to report from that week. haha) This week however I lost 1.2 lbs, so I'm down 52 lbs thus far! Only 10 more lbs till I get to my goal of 150. I might keep going if I feel like it when I hit 150, but it won't be as important to me to get to a number under that when I hit it.
Basic updates- Enjoyed some theater friends' Tony Awards party- lots of foodies, which is probably why I didn't do so well that particular week. My hubs' famous buffalo chicken dip went so quick (didn't even make it to the table- it was gone before you could announce it was brought right out of the oven), that I didn't have any, therefore luckily didn't have to use the points I saved for it- and got to use it for something else- like the awesome hummus someone brought.

 (we each got these cards, and if one of your nominees won, you got a prize)

(Hubs made alcoholic juice also for the party. I loved the apple one.)

This week has been filled with rehearsal for Music Man, meeting with people for the housing situation, and lots of work and such. Last week I worked 6 days straight (one of the days was a swap so I could have a day off in July for a friend's bday). Also did some Salvation Army/Walmart shopping and scored some great stuff which I'll show off on my MadcapFrenzy site later.

Saturday after practice we went to Tony's Place with theater buds and I had a bbq chicken sandwich and a salad (instead of fries). Their fat free sesame dressing was amazing. It was the first salad that I've had in a long time where I actually wanted to have more of! haha. If we go back there ever, I'm just getting a salad (I can't believe I'm actually saying that, since I'm not a huge salad person). All of their food looked and tasted amazing. One of our friends got a stuffed pepper with crab meat, and it look amazing (and I don't even like peppers or crab).

On Monday after meeting with the Bucks County Housing Group to apply for stuff for our house, the hubs and I went to The Green Parrot restaurant and enjoyed a good lunch before running errands and going to another theater practice. I had their personal Tomato pie. They did it perfect. Even though mostly the traditional tomato pie is served cold, I like my sauce to be at least room temperature and to have a good spice, which they excelled at. The hubs got a potato soup and a large salad.

On Tuesday (my weigh in day where I saw I lost 1.2 lbs) we went to Friendly's with some theater buds after practice for Music Man (does this seem like a trend- practice followed by food?- that is why I gained most productions I was in, but I'm determined to eat good while out). They actually have a 550 calorie menu, so I had the half turkey club melt and salad with fat free italian dressing. Was a good deal. Also got two scoops of sugar-free ice cream (I couldn't resist because we were at Friendly's after all, but sugar free ice cream is only 2 pp per scoop. So 2 scoops wasn't bad for 4 pp total).
Wednesday we went to a diner after practice and I had chicken noodle soup and salad with fat free italian.
So it has been a very Salad kind of week- that's the problem with going out to eat a lot- not a lot of options when it is the end of the day and you have not a lot of points left. So Salad it is.
It's kind of been a lot of microwave time at work in the past few weeks. As much as it gets a little boring, it really does help me portion control and since I am lazy in packing my lunch, it works for me.

 (a typical lunch/dinner at work- sugar free jello, diet soda, smartone/leancuisine/healthychoice, just one veg side and/or fruit- which I ate the fruit before this picture. Sometimes I throw in a string cheese)

(My jello matched my nails! haha)

Anyways, down 52 lbs, only 10 to goal! Hoping these last 10 aren't extremely horrible and hard to lose.
Happy weight loss!
-M

A Milestone down...

So I lost another 3.2 lbs this week. Not only was this great because I lost so much, but also because that means I have lost a total of 50.6 lbs since I started Weight Watchers back in October. I am now under 10 lbs away from my goal (I might keep going if I find it goes ok, but overall, my goal is 150). I have lost more than 50 lbs in under 8 months. This milestone is such a big deal, as it means I am on the home stretch of my weight loss. This however also means I cannot relax too much, otherwise those pounds will come back (which I DO NOT WANT- I want to look good for my friend's wedding in September and decent this summer).
Clothes are still not fitting right, as I'm between sizes again. I do also hope to start doing some upper body exercises, as I'm find that my arms are the flabby part left right now (especially the underarm area- looks gross when you wear a strapless dress- like I will be wearing for my friend's wedding).
Here's this week's numbers:

Basically this week I stuck extremely close to my points. I didn't use ANY weekly points and only uses a few of my exercise earned points. It also was time for me to drop my daily points value down a point to 28. If I find that I'm not losing enough after a few weeks, I might need to drop to 27 daily points, as I'm pretty sure I need to be at 27 or 26 points plus for my height and current weight. We shall see.
Hopefully things go well this coming week, as thus far I've been pretty darn good- but I know Sunday, my friend's Tony Award party, is going to be tough to be good at.

 (Considering I had 2 slices of this kind of pizza for dinner out with friends on Sunday, I was surprised I lost so much. But I guess because I didn't go over in points, it worked out good.)

 (I wanted to reward myself for hitting the 50 lbs down mark with a mani/pedi, but since we are saving up every penny for our new house, I just did it myself. I was later surprised by my mom, who got me a gift certificate to get a mani/pedi at a place near the theater we do shows at as a Congrats on my 50 lb loss- I'll use it when it gets closer to the show. :D I decided to go with bright neon green for good luck on the last 10 lbs.)

Happy weight loss and *crossing fingers* the last 10 lbs go by smoothly and quickly.
-M