And the decision is. . . .

Well, the news is in. . . I have to wait 3 more months to have surgery. My insurance is requiring me to have a total of 6 months with the dietician before they will approve my surgery. Which is a real bummer, but I guess I’ll just have to use that time to lose another 15 lbs.! I'm just happy I'm loosing.

I’m back into taking the stairs at work. While I was sick, I really slacked off of that. My next goal is to add some type of work out with it (i.e., Pilates or walking at lunch).

Today I was actually able to put a shirt on I bought after Christmas that was a little too tight for my liking. It fits perfect! That’s 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants I’ve been to get into that I couldn’t since I started this endeavor. I don't know the last time I even accomplished something like that. I was even able to suck my gut in and actually see where I’m sucking it in at! It’s the little things in life I love:)

Goal Tending: Week 2

Week 2 was marginally easier and yet not too much different from week 1. Here's the low down:

1) No Soda: only one soda this week - pretty darn good for a 6-8 soda a day girl! Oh wait, I forgot the 3 rum & cokes I had at Red Ball. Oh - but wait - those are counting in week 3. So - yeah this week, bummer for next!

2) Coffee: Kept right on this one all week, except the day after I only got 4.5 hours of sleep. Correlation? Heck yeah! Otherwise, I'm realizing many days I have coffee simply because it's habit. So, maybe I can cut this out altogether in March's goals??

3) Water: I really hate water! It's so PLAIN. And no fun at all. But, I'm trying! I can usually suck down two bottles, but sometimes it's a chore. Any thoughts on how to make this better/easier? And no, flavored water is just as bad (and usually has added calories and sometimes fake sugar as well!)

4) Sweets: So much better on this one - until Valentine's Day. That darn husband - trying to be so sweet and romantic and totally blowing the diet for that day and much of the next. *crying*

5) Workout: Getting better at this. I keep the handweights by the bed, so I can grab them on the way into bed or on the way out. Plus the 15 - 30 minutes or so on Sunday morning jumping around as I lead KidStuf is a definite workout! OH - and that sweet hubby from #4 above also brought in the treadmill finally - maybe he felt guilty over the chocolates...

6) Screen time: Still a challenge, but definitely better this week. Realized hanging out on the computer of boredom is no reason to be online. Books are better. Kid-time is best!

7) Sleep time: Better here as well. When I don't get tied up in a computer game or IM session, I get to sleep earlier! Go figure! I'm still a night owl though, so the thought of going to bed before midnight is just "wrong" somehow! But, I'm trying to switch to being an early bird...although worms suck almost as much as water... ;)

Thoughts on the water thing especially (and anything else you want to comment on) greatly appreciated.

February weigh-in

I went for my monthly weigh-in yesterday at Riverside. I am down another 5 lbs!! I really thought I had gained weight, so you can imagine how happy I was to see that I had lost that much:) That's a total of 15 lbs. since I went to the seminar in November 07 - and 10 lbs in the past 2 months. The dietician feels I'm ready to have the surgery now and was going to fax my paperwork in to the insurance company yesterday. They will either approve it or tell me I have to do 3 more months with the dietician. So keep your fingers crossed!

So now it's back on schedule for keeping my food log and getting my butt up to exercise. Which the exercise seems to be my hardest thing to get motivated on. If you have any pointers - please - let me know!

Reading the Scale

So, I may have cheated a little this morning. I first stepped on the scale BEFORE my shower and it read 169.4. The, I stepped on AFTER my shower and it read 168.8. Really? Tried again. 168.4. Ok. One more time - 168.4. So - best 2 out of 3 for me today.

The questions I have here are these: Did I really have a pound of crud on me? Or did I wash out a lot of hairspray and makeup? Or did I shrivel a little due to the extensive length and heat of the shower?

Any way around it, the official weight for today is 168.4 - down almost 3 lbs since I started this 13 days ago.

I can live with that!

Goal Tending: Week 1

I know this is a little overdue, but this is the first real chance I've had to sit and write! Here's my recap for Week 1:

1) No Soda: In the first week, I kept to this really well. In fact, I only had one soda the entire week - and that was the very first day! Otherwise, it was fairly easy to bypass most days and I was only tempted once or twice to say "screw it".

2) Coffee: Kept pretty well to this one as well. Especially when my coworkers informed me my big big cup is only 16oz, not 20. Whoo hoo! I went back and adjusted my numbers and instantly felt even better. Notice that on the weekends I usually don't have any coffee at all - and that's usually when I need it the most. Hmmmmm....

3) Water: Since I wasn't drinking coffee or soda, water was usually the easiest to grab. Sometimes I would have a tea or lemonade, which of course don't get factored in anywhere, but they have to be better than coffee and soda!

4) Sweets: This one is MUCH harder for me to keep, especially at night and on weekends. It just isn't routine for me to grab fruit or whole wheat crackers or something. Not when a reese's cup or ice cream sound SO much better. But, I'm learning and working on it. Someone needs to yell at me more on this one though...

5) Workout: Ok - when you get home at 6pm, feed kids, do homework or crafts, cuddle and are supposed to be going to bed early, when exactly are you supposed to workout?? I started (finally!) doing some weight work before I go to bed (and I HURT thank you very much!). I also realized that walking 2 malls for 4 hours DOES count as exercise. Especially when you're not really stopping to try things on, cuz nothing looks good. And when you walk in the mall like I do, it is definitely aerobic. No sauntering for this girl - pick a destination and it's walking so fast I'm nearly jogging. Saturday morning, my legs felt like jelly!

6) Screen time: What was I thinking on this one?? Seriously - 60 minutes or less? Just writing a post to both logs can take up that time! And forget about games. Once I get started on one of those (my recent favorites are Build-A-Lot and Chocolatier 2) I lose all track of time! When I next look up, it's 1am and I'm screwed. Gotta get this under control.

7) Sleep time: This is definitely in direct correlation to screen time. One goes up, the other goes down. So, to get more sleep, definitely need to get the screen time under control.

So - that's the first week. I don't really feel any better and I'm actually suffering from a constant headache. Nothing is making this bad boy go away. But,I was having these massive migraines before I started this goal tending thing, so maybe it's something else. I was hoping if I got myself better hydrated my headaches would improve. Now, I'm thinking I probably need to go see a doc about these. Will keep posted there. Otherwise, the experiment continues...

My goals for this week

Ok, I was going to make goals this week, but after being sick Monday, they are now just to make it through the rest of the week and try to get some exercise in. I'm doing ok eating, but the extras have been pushed to the side the past 3 days.

I'm still caffeine free and sugar free for the most part. I did sneak a few french fries out of Jackson's happy meal last night after gymnastics, but I haven't had them in weeks! Other than that I'm doing pretty good on the no fried foods thing. I guess right now, my hardest thing is to get movitivated to work out. If I don't start doing it soon, though, I'm going to be the only reason for my surgery to be post poned and I don't want that.

So I'm going to make my goal to be to take the stairs the rest of the week at work and to get my pilates DVD out of the box (that I bought 6 months ago) and use it. Please say a prayer!:)

Goal Changes

Last night I decided that one of my previously stated goals was a little vague for me and not really going to be possible for meyet (3 planned meals/day). So, I decided to drop that one and make some that I could probably keep - limiting my at home computer time and getting more sleep daily.

For the tracking grid, everything will be in the same measurements - ounces for beverage intake, minutes/hours for time items. This way, at the end, I can also graphical represent my trends. Over a few months, I should be able to see where my weak days maybe (I assume it's all weekends, but I'd like to prove that to myself). I also realized that I need to add my daily weight to the grid.

Here's my revised goals:

1. Soda (oz.) - none allowed.
2. Coffee (oz.) - no more than 20oz/day (size of my regular cup at work)
3. Water (oz.) - at least 40oz/day (two large bottles)
4. Sweets(#) - no more than 1 "serving" per day (this one will be harder to track, but I'll get it figured out - maybe just a simple boolean - 0 for passed, 1 for failed)
5. Workout (min.) - at least 15 to 30 minutes/day
6. Screen Time (min.) - no more than 60 minutes/day on non-work/non-church activities - wouldn't it be nice if I could limit it to 60 minutes AT ALL - hard to do when you work for an Internet Consultancy though! ;)
7. Sleep (hours - prev. night) - at least 7 hours per night, 8 would be sublime.
8. Weight (in A.M.) - to be recorded in lbs, of course. :)

******************
Although I probably won't do this every day, here's my results from today (not encouraging in many regards!)

1. Soda(oz.) - Had a 16oz soda at the movies - seemed weird to have water with popcorn!
2. Coffee(oz.) - 20oz Starbucks White Raspberry Mocha with whip - had to get through the morning manager meeting today (which is the ONLY day I have a Starbucks anymore!)
3. Water(oz.) - 40oz (+ 16oz hot tea)
4. Sweets(#) - 1/2 small movie theatre popcorn
5. Workout (min.) - not yet, but it's only 8pm. I think 1 hip-hop dance routine or some yoga can still be put in tonight
6. Screen Time (min.) - So far, only 15 minutes. But, Emily wants to play RCT3 with me, so it will probably be longer tonight - but, it's kid time, so maybe it shouldn't count?? =)
7. Sleep (hours - prev. night) - only 5 hours - 2am utnil 7am.
8. Weight (in A.M.) - 170.4 this morning

You can still check out the grid here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-mJfOClu-kA7ktPEOswNPQ