Day 15 - Weigh In Number 2

I lost again this week :)  Not as much as my unrealistic hopes, but I know better.

Another 1.8 pounds down this week and a little over an inch lost all around which brings my actual weight to 223.6 lbs. I'll take it! Especially considering I had a couple rough days. But I kept myself accountable and on track and it paid off. Here's to an even better week this week!

What are my plans? Getting all of my GHG's (good healthy guidelines) in and planning my week's menus according to the TAMALE PARTY I'm hostessing with my siblings this weekend! It's the theme we chose to explore next after sushi night. This one excites me more than you could imagine! I <3 tamales :) And of course, I'll share the making of them and my photos.

For now, time for a smoothie... in a bowl.

Day 8 - First Weigh-In

WaHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Week 1 loss... 5 pounds! I'm thrilled and that much more committed today than I was even yesterday. These little things help so much in keeping me on track day after day. Seeing results allows me to more easily be reasonable about my food and eating choices. :) So happy! And guess what? I ate sushi (and quite a bit of it), a chocolate strawberry cake that I made on the fly upon request after the sushi that night (it had scratch milk chocolate whipped cream, too-- I just can't help it, I'll always be influenced by my pastry background), and ice cream on more than one occasion. All of the good healthy foods help the body to more efficiently burn everything. 

I missed feeling like this :)

Days 6 & 7 - Sushi and 2013

SUSHI! I completely forgot to post my sushi escapades yesterday, and it was soooooo fun! So here it is.

I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about sushi making, which I'll include at the bottom. These sushi Chef's are amazing to me! So clean and precise through the whole process. I may have been culinarily trained, but the exactitude and respect for their craft that show is mind blowing to me!

It really was simple, but not easy (yes, those two terms can coexist). I got all of the ingredients from my local Wegman's, including the bamboo rolling mat and a package of chop sticks. The ingredients were simple for me: sweet potato, avocado, red pepper, cucumber, shrimp, crab and peanuts. (I had a craving for a couple specific combinations that I had a year ago at a little sushi place near The Culinary Institute).

The pics aren't step-by-step, but I got so excited about creating sushi rolls that I kind of forgot :) I had my sister, brother and his girlfriend over and my hubby joined us when he returned from work. The kiddos in the house weren't really into this so it was the grown-ups having a sushi experimenting party.

 

The vegetable ingredients prepped and ready to go. Sweet potato is easiest to handle if it has been boiled and allowed to cool under refrigeration for a few hours. Don't try cutting while it's warm, it'll become mashed, you want sticks.

More ingredients: the peanuts are slightly chopped and marinated in soy sauce for 30 minutes, and nori, or roasted seaweed sheets. For the inside out rolls I cut the square sheets of nori in half; the whole sheet would have been necessary if I were rolling them with the seaweed on the outside.

The nori is on my table here and I've patted down the seasoned sticky rice rice over the whole thing, overlapping the long edges slightly. To season the sticky rice I found a number of methods but I used a bit of rice vinegar, salt and sugar. Some call for just rice vinegar. From here I transferred the rice and nori RICE SIDE DOWN to the plastic covered bamboo mat and laid my chosen ingredients in a line across the middle and began rolling. See the videos below on technique. It's pretty neat!

My rolled sushi! I was so proud of me :) I've never done this before and got so enthusiastic that I made waaaaaay too much. Waaaaay too much.

This is the sweet potato avocado roll that I was craving. I also made a peanut avocado roll remembering the yummy one from a year ago. I dipped them in a bit of soy sauce using my chop sticks, and I made everyone else use chop sticks, too.

This was so much fun! We all decided it would be fun to gather every couple weeks and make from scratch some new food that we've never made... Next up: tamales!!!

YouTube videos that I used:

Enjoy and have fun! They all say the same thing, you're only limited by your own creativity when it comes to flavor and ingredients!

2013 - No Resolutions

I don't believe in resolutions. I did at one point in time, but I found for myself, like many others, just using a new day of a new year as the reason to change something about me doesn't work. In fact, it sends me spiraling in the other direction pretty quickly. I think setting new goals for yourself when you're ready to commit to change is the best way to set yourself up for success.

Serious and lasting weight loss is a journey and a lifestyle change and commitment. Being ready is key. In my initial weight loss journey prior to pregnancy I committed in many ways: I threw out every bit of clothing that I under-grew as soon as it was too big (not allowing myself the comfort to gain weight again); enlisted the complete support of my family to eat healthier foods and not bring trigger foods into the house; I was honest with myself and world and allowed myself to feel accountable to you, my virtual audience; I talked openly to friends thus gaining their support and admiration; I tracked every bit of food that entered my mouth--this is key! you need to be fully aware of your habits and understand that even little tastes and nibbles add to caloric intake; being ready to address that there are reasons that we eat the way we do and that other areas of our lives need to be healed and need to change along with just food and activity.

It's not easy, but when I started seeing the scale continually rewarding my commitment, I gained more and more motivation. It became a wonderfully addicting feeling to succeed and get closer and closer to my goal. And if I did have little set backs, they were easier to take when I knew that if I was honest about my behavior and kept plugging away, my body would reward me.

So, no resolutions. Today is the same as yesterday for me. I recommitted 7 days ago, and having nothing to do with the new year. It had everything to do with readiness.

Tomorrow: Weigh-in results!

Day 3 - Successful Aches

Well, my first 2.45 days restarting my journey have been good and successful. I've already seen results on the evil numerical monitor that resides in my bathroom, though nothing is official till Wednesday's weigh-in.

I do have one complaint, however. My knees are killing me again! They last hurt like this when I originally started my weight-loss journey April 3rd, 2011. But now I'm 20 pounds less than I was then. So what gives? I figured it out this morning...

Though I'm no longer at that original weight, I still carry it around in the form of an ever-growing munchkin. :)  even more reason to get back to healthy, to keep up with him!

Day 2 - Motivation from the Boobs

Reason Number... oh I don't know... I want to again lose weight:

Once again my body doesn't match my boobs. They look much happier on a healthy sized me. (I never said all of reasons for wanting to lose weigh were altruistic!)

Day 1 (Decmber 26th, 2012)

New Info (as of December 26th, 2012)

Since my last regular posting we have had many, many things changed in our lives. New baby. No more working for me. Move across NY state from NYC area to Buffalo. It's been an adjustment and I have to wrap my head around weight loss differently now. As of this day, I am recommitting and starting over. This is no longer an extenuation of my original 100 pound, 365 day journey. It's different because life is different. Time to adjust and get back to healthy. It won't be the same and I can't expect to succeed in the same way now as I have in the past.

So let's get on with it!

My current (and scary) stats:

• Weight: 230.4 lbs. I was 207 a month ago. This was the lowest I got after baby #3 and before beginning to gain again. Still not my highest weight ever, but scares the ever-loving bejeezus out of me.
• Eating habits until today: any and everything without thought, but always in response to boredom, stress and lack of energy to make anything healthy.
• My hubby is along for the ride intentionally this time, which will be a huge help for me. He came along last time because I gave him no choice with being the food buyer/preparer in the house. This time he is going to face this challenge and revamp of lifestyle head on. Thank you my Love :)

So today I start over at Day 1. New lifestyle, new challenges ahead, new commitment.   

Day 239... I think

My Math may be off. No one ever accused me of being good with numbers... Should have the hubby help. Oh well. I digress.

Current restart weight: 213.6
New goal date (calculated by the average loss I used to maintain): January 20, 2013
Current mood: In control, but nervous. And needing coffee.

I ate with wild abandon for the last few months. I always knew I would come back to WW as soon as I could post-baby, but now I wish I had been a little more rational and reasonable about what I was eating. I used pregnancy as an excuse to be irresponsible. Fruit? Vegetable? What's that? : /

Well, now is not the time to get down on myself and beat myself up emotionally for what happened in the past. Now is the time to get back into my good habits and start seeing the results I was so able to count on by following the program!

I'm also going to commit to getting exercise into my daily habits this time around. It'll be necessary as I was beginning to plateau last time around without it. I'm thinking Couch to 5K.

It's good to be back! Follow me again?

Day 118

So for today I'm going to work on my goals and motivations for the coming weeks. I have 3 milestones that I want to hit soon, and they are within reach and I can't wait to get to them.

In order, they are:

• Getting under 210 lbs. (this could very well happen at my next weigh-in
• Getting under 200 lbs. (could be accomplished within 4 weeks; haven't been this low since before I was pregnant with my 1st son over 7 years ago)
• Dropping my BMI to 29, which will be below the 'obese' range and into the 'overweight' range

I had set out at the beginning of my summer break to be confident enough to wear a cute dress (or skirt) back to school tomorrow... I did go clothes shopping two days ago and tried on some dresses. They were cute and I liked them, and was mostly comfortable in them, but I've never been really into dresses, and couldn't justify spending that much money on something I may not wear more than one or two times. (The old adage- if you don't love it in the store, you won't love it or wear it at home.) So I don't count this as a failure- I just changed my mind, because I could very well wear one, but it's not my style really. But I did find other cute things that are more form fitting and I'm absolutely excited to wear them!