Well, I gained back the 1.8 lb that I lost immediately after the road trip when I went in 4 days later for my normal weigh in. I don't feel badly about it though, as I didn't eat extremely healthy the 2 days before WI, though I still hadn't eaten all of my flex points.

I plan to go to the gym for the first time this evening, though I hate going alone right now. I'm trying out the personal strength training plan that I got from freetrainers.com, a site that one of my fellow A.S.S.ers suggested. I love that they're only 6 weeks long. I had meant to start last week, but just didn't. That's why my goal is to go tonight even though I have so many other things that need to be done.

I was hoping to spend some time doing stuff with Jeff since he's not working tonight, but he worked all night last night, so he's still sleeping. I can't blame him, but it means he won't be sleeping with me tonight either. I find that our schedules are so extremely different that it's hard sometimes. A part of me still kind of wishes that I had my own apartment so that it wouldn't matter to me that we have different schedules. I hate getting up by myself & leaving him sleeping every morning, or going to bed while he's still up. I've gotten better at it though. I wish I didn't feel the need to call ahead & ask "permission" when I want to have people over, in case he's napping or something. Really, it's just be thoughtful and I know that he would do it for me, but since I've never had my own place I've never had the ability to just completely do what I want, when I want. Maybe I should've gotten my own place before we moved in together. I do love being here with him though, and it makes sense financially.

I have 8 points left for today, so I'm trying to decide what I'll have to eat...maybe I'll cook some of my yellow beans up before worrying about freezing them. I'm really not in the mood to cook, especially because I'm a bit worried that I'll wake Jeff who's sleeping on the couch.

Last week was wonderfully active with kayaking, golfing, walking & a softball tournament! I hope to continue being active this week as well!

Road Trip Completed!

Well, we got back from the road trip on Friday, and I woke up early enough Saturday to call Mom & convince her to go to the Saturday morning 9:45am meeting, the last one of the week! We weighed in, and both of us lost! She lost 1.6 lb and I lost 1.8 lb! Fantastic for having gone on holidays!

I chalk it up to eating healthy wraps and snacks for the majority of the trip, and to the hike through a waterfall (~30 min) that I convinced Mom to do with me. Plus there was some walking on a boardwalk and around a museum. I meant to take my 10 lb weights with me, but I forgot them here at the apartment. It felt really great to get up & make myself go to the meeting.

I loved my "I was right" moment while we were away; Mom fought against taking food for wraps with us. I argued & did it anyway. At least twice it came in handy as there was nowhere for us to eat, including during an insane storm! Yay me! haha

I actually woke up Sunday morning at 8:30am. While I kind of wanted to sleep in, I got up and screwed around on the computer for awhile. It was my first time online since Tuesday!

I've been wholly unproductive since I got home, and I feel horrible because of it. There is all this stuff that needs to get done, and vacation was the perfect time for it, yet I've done none of it! I thought I'd have all evening to do it as well, but I had forgotten that we're going out for wings & a late movie tonight, so I have ~ 3 hours. I'm beginning to think that I should skip the gym for tonight so that I have time to grocery shop, get a watch & clean up around the apartment. I'm worried that I won't start tomorrow either though. *eeps*

Well, if I don't go to the gym tonight, I'll start out by doing some free weights with my 10 lb weights tonight before I leave. I want to pick up some 5 lb weights while I'm out because sometimes 10 lb is just too much.

Back at It--Vacation Round II

Well, I fell off the posting bandwagon, but thankfully am still fine as far as following WW. My biggest issue so far is weekends. I don't think I've been on points for a weekend yet! That's my goal for next weekend. Other than Sunday though, I did alright this long weekend. :) It helped that we did almost 2 hr of walking and an hour of canoeing on Sunday, then another hour or so of walking today & some killer stairs!

I'm a bit anxious about traveling with Mom for four days around the Gaspe because she loves desserts so much and she doesn't follow any kind of plan. *eeps* We're taking a cooler with us though & so I'm hoping to fill it with water, healthy snacks & maybe take some small meal things too (e.g. stuff for wraps, breakfast). Not only will it save us money, but it'll help me stay on track.

I'm worried about getting APs in as well. Mom can walk some, as long as it's on flat ground; I'd really like to log some APs though. I'm going to really want it b/c there will be so much driving involved. I packed my sports bra, shorts & a t-shirt just in case one of our hotels happens to have a gym inside it. *fingers crossed*

The provincial challenge started today. I completely forgot until after I got home & logged online. Fortunately, I didn't go over points today, but it was too late to get all the water I needed in, and I ate really unhealthy.

Speaking of which, I've noticed that I feel gross when I don't eat healthy & drink a lot now. Before I never really noticed a difference, but I think that my body is getting used to eating well, so it really stands out when it gets fed crap. I love my unhealthy foods, but I like feeling good, and not stuffed. Right now I feel rather stuffed, and that's just from finally having supper a couple hours ago. (3 pieces of multi-grain haddock, 2 tbsp tartar sauce & 1 C skim milk).

I can't wait to get settled in again though & start going to a gym again. Honestly, I miss being active & fit, but it always seemed like I never had time. I know that I really could've made time, but I never felt like it was worth the effort...though it was.

I really hope that I can stick to everything while traveling. It's going to be really tough though.

Jeff definitely helps though because he understands that I'm passionate about this. He finished off the marshmallows today (his eating habits are definitely more unhealthy at this point), but made sure to hold on to the empty bag for me & know where it was, just so I could log the points for the 3 I ate on Saturday night. I was super sad to find out how many points honey graham crackers are though. :( 8 points for just 6 crackers! That's only part of 3 s'mores! Oh the humanity!

It's been great to be able to start connecting with people on the boards. I've been posting for a couple weeks now, but haven't really gotten to know anyone. I think that's going to start to change now that I'm a part of the Provincial Challenge "Atlantic Shrinking Shores" team. I'm going to try to lose 15 lb between now & November. I think it's doable!

I'm off now to finish up my packing & head to bed. I have to be up in less than 7 hours!

I was talking to one of the other girls in my office & it turns out that she's doing WW as well. I discussed how I felt about my first meeting with her & she said that she was really surprised and completely different from her experience at the Wed. meetings. I'm heartened to hear this for sure!

I'm also pumped to know that there is someone else in the office who is involved in the program. She was a lifetime member, but gained some of the weight back.

I'm trying to help motivate my Mom to stick with the plan, and I think it's working so far. She's trying to walk every day with my Dad, and actually trying to keep track of what she's eating, even though she's doing the Core program. It'll be nice to actually see this work for her. *fingers crossed*

By talking about my experiences so far with WW with another friend who did it in the past, I have actually motivated her to get back into it again. That was something completely unexpected! I'm glad though. I think that having multiple people around me that I can talk to about this is going to be really important to helping me stick with it.

Now that I've been able to estimate how long it will take me to bike to work from home (~40 min), I can't wait to get started! I'm being careful not to try too much too fast though, as I need to get used to getting up early & getting there on time while driving first. Working from home first thing in the morning so far has been fantastic, but it wasn't a big deal if I slept in a little bit because I could just make the time up later and no one would know. Now I need to be at the office for 8:30am. I know no one would give me a hard time since it's all students, and none are my actual bosses, but it's important to me.

I can't believe that it's Tuesday already! I need to go weigh in tomorrow night, but I can't go to the meeting. :( I have a conference call at 7pm. I don't think that I'm going to be able to go to the meetings at all this week...unless I go at lunch time tomorrow. Hmmm...

So far I find that I'm having a hard time using all of my daily points. I get home around 4pm, get hungry around 6pm and I still have between 15-18 points to eat! *gasps* I just don't like eating a lot of heavy things when I'm working, and during the summer I like basically fruits & veggies, which don't add up to a lot of points. I'm going to try to somehow start taking food that's worth more calories with me, but I feel like it's defeating the purpose since I want to eat fewer points in the end anyway.

Getting the oil in hasn't been too bad thanks to the couscous I made. It's so easy to just throw the 2 tsp of extra virgin olive oil in. It's when I run out of couscous that I'm going to have to come up with something else.

This weekend is going to be tough. We're going to the Island for the Aerosmith concert and a couple of parties. I'm not naive enough to think that I won't drink, but I'm going to have to figure out my points & ration them. I can't wait to go swimming in the ocean though. Yay! I've only been swimming once so far this summer and I miss it.

Mom offered to buy me 3 outfits (no more than $150 total) for work at my new job, but I've decided to hold off because I want to get new clothes after I lose some weight. This is incentive for me. Also, I can't wait to get a membership to the Y because I miss lifting weights and I feel so much more comfortable using machines since that's what I first did weightlifting on.

I definitely think that there's something wrong with my knee, but I'm not sure what. It's been a bit of a pain for ~2 weeks now, and biking didn't help. It was sore to walk early Monday morning, but it's better now. It feels weird when I walk upstairs or put weight on the kneecap (kneeling). Hopefully it'll work itself out & feel better after I lose some weight. I really don't think that my body is meant to handle being this heavy.

Well, I think I'm going to go for a bike ride. I wanted to wait for Jeff so that I wouldn't be alone on the trails, but I know that he's just going to want to relax, veg on the tv & eat...and then it'll be dark.

One of the things that I'm noticing is that when I want to exercise I tend to wait & hope that Jeff will do it with me. Mayhaps it's because I know he wants to get in shape as well, but I think another part of it is that I enjoy the company. That will be a nice thing about the Y because I have friends who go there.

So Far, So Good...

I've been following the WW Flex Plan for 5 days now. At the end of Day 4 I weighed myself at home out of curiosity.

I was ecstatic to see that I had dropped ~6.4 lbs!

I upped my activity level as well.

2 hours of dancing @ Boom! on Friday night.
3 hours of golf on Sunday morning.
2hr 40min of biking in to downtown on Sunday evening.

I feel great!

First Weight Watchers Meeting

I must admit I wasn't impressed by my first WW meeting, and thus far I'm not a fan of the leader, but I'm still going to give it a shot for another 9 weeks.

We discussed how to deal with plateaus, which I already understand.

I didn't feel like the leader when going over everything at the end was trying to help us personally. It felt kind of like we were just 2 more randoms. And while I realize that until I'm there for a bit I am a random, you don't want to feel like that when you're trying to build a type of relationship to motivate you.

I got a 2 week free trial of eTools though, so I'm pumped about that.

My Daily Points total is 28. So far I've eaten 6 points. I have to manage to eat all 28 though, so I'm going to have to start snacking more or something.

I'm not sure how I'm going to eat enough oil/day since I don't use oil, but Mom suggested dipping bread in oil the way we did in Italy. Still sounds gross to me.

Well, I'm off to make some lunch & go into work.

Let It Begin.

Consider today the beginning of new efforts to eat healthy and get fit.

I just weighed myself at exactly 213.0 lb.

I never want to be this weight or more again.

I plan to start Weight Watchers (hopefully) this Wednesday & get a membership to the Y as soon as I can afford it.

My realistic goal is to lose 30lb. My eventual goal is to lose between 70-80lb.

I want to gain more upper body muscle and be able to lift 50lb like it's a joke.

I want to be able to easily lift at least a 25lb weight with each arm.

I want to be a size that doesn't require double digits or a specialty shop.

I want to feel healthy and energized.

I want to avoid new stretch marks.

I want to easily be able to bike to & from work, including biking up the UNB hill!

I want to be able to jog the 5km Run for the Cure.

I want to not be morbidly obese.

I want to feel comfortable, content and happy with my body again.