Check in Monday - 1/9/12

I'm not a prize fighter and it stresses me out to focus on numbers instead of goals, so 

is now

Instead of spouting off how much I lost - or didn't lose - the last week, I'm going to do a status check on my goals for month!

How things are going so far:

• Walking/Working Out: decent progress! I walked twice last week and hit up yoga once. This week, I hope to get 3 walks in and 1 - 2 yoga classes!
• Eating at Home: I whiffed it on the goal setting - I should focus on how many meals I can eat out rather than how many I eat at home so it's easier to keep track. New goal - eat out 3 times (or less) this week. Last week I ate most meals at home, so yay for that!
• Meditating: Whiffed it. Not one session on the cushion. Goal for this week - hit the mat 4 times, working up to 7!

Conclusion: Progress has been made in many areas; room for improvement in others!

How are your goals going so far? 

Weigh in Monday - 1/2/12

My first Weigh in Monday of the year is kind of a cheat - the last time I weighed in seriously was in October and thanks to the stress of having a critically ill dad, I lost a decent bit of weight since then. So instead of being like "I lost 8lbs MOFOS!" (see what I did there? BAM) I'm just going to start over with my goals at this new weight. 

Goals: 

• Lose 5lbs by my birthday in March
• Walk 4 days a week
• Start workouts again (slowly! I pulled my back in November and have to watch it!)
• Eat at home for 10 meals a week
• Meditate 7 times a week

What are your "get healthy" goals for this year?

Weigh in Monday - 10/3/11

Oh snap y'all! After 6 days of tracking like a mad woman, I have lost 2 lbs! TWO! 

My Fitness Pal makes it pretty easy - I was shocked that the barcode scanner on the iPhone app has worked for literally everything I have scanned, save for a tin of Danish cookies bought at a fundraiser. I am sort of amazed with how counting actual calories is such a motivator - seeing calories go in and calories go out through exercise on my tracker make me a lot more aware of what I'm eating and how much. Way more than the points system has for a long while.

October Goal check:

• Weight lost: 2.2lbs so far
• Left to lose: 2.8lbs
• Still getting up at 7? Today it was 7:40, but was up at 7 both Thursday and Friday, 8 on Saturday and 8:30 on Sunday - so much earlier than before! Focusing on hitting 7 every other day this week!
• Walking? YES! Ryan and I have been taking family walks in the evenings and I will be walking on Wednesday and Friday morning this week before work. Tuesday and Thursday are bootcamp days!

Hope you are all having the best Monday ever - how are you doing on your October goals so far?

Weigh in Monday - 9/19/11

Hello friends! I hope your summer is coming to a lovely end - here in Texas, we have had two glorious days of rain, so yay September! 


It's about midway through the month and I'm surprised to be on track for my goals - huzzah!


Goal: 5 lbs by end of September
Weight loss: 1
Left to lose before deadline (Sept 30): 1.2
Habit swap (veggies for fried foods) - still on track, but barely - I have had some run ins with french fries...
Walking: still once a week, but have added in another fitness class (details to come!)

Weigh in Monday - 8/29/11

You should have eaten more veggies Sarah.

After two weeks of pretty good eating and two weekends of end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i'll-eat-lots behavior, I am right back where I started. Right back at square one.

I thought about lying like a liar and saying "Stayed the same!" but I have to be honest with you and with myself - bad eating blowouts have a real impact on your health, your weight and the elasticity of your pants. 

My problems with weight tend to be an issue with rewards, emotions and boredom. That is the chunkiness trifecta right there folks! Knowing your triggers is half the battle - you have to work to retrain your default behaviors - that's another blog post though. 

Let's get down to Weigh in Monday brass tacks!

Weigh in Monday Stats

Pounds lost this week: 0

Left to lose: 5 pounds

Goal deadline countdown:  3 days (Sept 1)

Mammogram Monday!

Where was I last Monday - instead of weighing in and writing a blog post I was having my boob squished in a vice. Yep. 

Things are A OK, but it was the result of a lump found in a routine breast exam. Ladies - check yourself before you wreck yourself - do self exams and keep up with yearly well-woman checkups with your doctor. It might save your life!

I was super lucky, but many women find out they have breast cancer thanks to this important (albeit uncomfortable) exam. Give a woman in need a free mammogram by clickty clicking on The Breast Cancer site. Yes it's legit! 

On a weight loss note: I am about the same as last weigh in - I gained a few ounces but nothing major. Full Weigh in Monday - the last of August - next week!

Weigh in Monday - 8/8/11

Wisdom for our times.

Huzzah! After a whirlwind 72 hour trip to Portland, Oregon and a bunch of plane food yesterday, I still lost! The focus for last week was portion control and better choices - this week, I am going to keep that focus and add exercise back to the mix. Bootcamp - here I come!

Weigh in Monday Stats

Pounds lost this week: 1.4

Left to lose: 2.40

Goal deadline countdown:  25 days (Sept 1)

Weigh in Monday and lots of changes!

A whole week back on track and I feel good! Not great, I have bronchitis for some reason which suckety-suck-suck-sucks, but I am feeling the effects of limiting caffeine, eating less meat and sleeping well. 

If you are visiting this blog on the actual site, you may notice that it looks a lot different and that there are crazy things everywhere - I'm in the process of updating this blog to be more awesome! Please excuse the mess, the broken links and weird stock photos.

Another thing that's changing - I'm adjusting my goals based on my, well, adjusted goals. I want to be healthy. What started as a quest for looser pants and less thigh dimples has turned into a journey to complete health - physically, mentally and spiritually (stay with my folks, we're only at "Hippie Alert" level 2 - no bongos will be played or Birkenstocks worn!)

So here's the deal:

• Goals will be monthly - example, I would like to lose 5 pounds in August. 
• Each month I will focus on a new habit to bust
• I will be adding some craft tutorials, recipes and other cool stuff!

Annnnndddd now to the accountability part of this exercise:

Weigh in Monday Stats

Pounds lost this week: 1.2 

Left to lose: 3.8 

Goal deadline countdown: 31 days (Sept 1)

Weigh in Monday - 6/20/11

Yay! I lost some weight again! After a couple of weeks back to my normal diet, I seem to be getting back to where I was before. 


This week I will focus on tracking every day, adding in more healthy recipes and limiting eating out to 2 - 3 meals instead of, you know, every freakin' meal!


Lost this week: 1.8 lbs
Pounds lost so far: 3.6 lbs

Pounds left to lose: 24.6 lbs

Weigh in Monday - 6/6/11

All abord the gain train! This week, thanks to the weekend of awesome that I had on Memorial Day weekend, was all about gaining like 5 pounds. I knew I would have a gain this week, but I just didn't expect it to be that big - I tracked all week, ate healthy meals and home and did all my scheduled workouts. Thank goodness I didn't step on the scale last week or I would have fainted!


This makes me think of the weight-loss Bermuda Triangle that is vacation gain. Every time I go on a vacation - no matter how long or short - I gain. Sometimes it makes perfect sense - "Why yes I did have bacon with each meal" or "I was on the 12 cupcake a day tour of the East Coast!" Other times, like when I eat well, walk a ton and even hit the hotel gym, it's a mystery! This time was not a surprise - I'm told by many of my co-vacationers on this trip they gained too. I'm officially changing the name of this trip from Ranchcation to Weightgaincation 2011! 


So I'm almost back to square one as far as weight loss is concerned - I say almost because I feel great, have more muscles and better habits in general, but numbers wise I would have been kicked off the Biggest Loser this week for sure. One thing that's certain - you can't out train a bad diet people. Remember this next time you go on a food bender and think "I'll hit the gym later and be fine!" 

Lost gained this week: 4.8 lbs <=== daaayyymmmn!
Pounds lost so far: 1.8

Pounds left to lose: 28.20

Conspicuously Missing Weigh-In Monday!

I just spent the best weekend ever with my best friends ever - and missed doing my regular Weigh-In Monday because of it! It's probably a good thing, as I ate everything in sight and drank a ton of wine - no regrets though, it was 100% awesome.

WIM returns next week! Until then, enjoy the best motivational speech ever.

Weigh in Monday - 5/23/11

I gained a bit this week, but it wasn't anything crazy bad - just 2 ounces! I figured that it would happen - I have started working out again and gaining muscles (yeaaahh!) makes you plateau or gain for a while before you start losing again. It's a worthwhile trade off though - I would much rather be healthy overall and able to lift 10 bags of groceries in one trip (totally did this recently - huzzah!) than make it to my goal without the lifestyle change. 


Speaking of my goal, I don't know if 30 pounds is realistic. I am going to keep it as something to shoot for, but my WW goals are closer to 15 - 20 pounds, so if I make it there by December I'll be a super happy gal anyway! 


Lost gained this week: 0.2 lbs
Pounds lost so far: 6.6

Pounds left to lose: 23.4

Weigh in Monday - 5/16/11

Oh my gosh y'all - I can't count! Or at least, I can't take all information into consideration when making platitudes about my weight loss, etc. I screwed up on my metrics - again! 


Total weight loss so far - from August 2010, is 6.8 pounds. Not too shabby, but not the original 8.8 pounds I thought it was. I was down that far during March and early April, while having some stress issues, but now I'm back up a little bit. That's cool though - I'll bring it down one week at a time in a healthy way, instead of a "too stressed to eat" way!


Lost this week: 0.3lbs
Pounds lost so far: 6.8

Pounds left to lose: 23.2

Weigh in Monday - 5/9/11

I gots a new scale. Didn't like it.

Ok! I got a new scale and realized that it weighs me quite a few pounds heavier than my previous one - so I'm sticking with the old scale! 


This week I'm going to focus on tracking and continue to walk 30 minutes a day. My ankle is feeling a lot better, so I will also try to go to bootcamp on Tuesday and Thursday this week!

**UPDATED METRICS** 

I'm adjusting my numbers based on my realization that I lost 9 pounds since August 2011, which is when I made my "lose 30lbs!" goal.

Pounds lost so far: 8.8

Pounds left to lose: 21.2

Updated: 5/9/11

Weigh in Monday - 5/2/11

I'm back y'all!

It's been a rough two weeks - my dad has been sick, my sister and I were caring for him while my mom was out of town, he got worse, ended up in the hospital (for fluids and rest - he's a bit better now, thank goodness), I sprained my ankle (while visiting dad in the hospital!) and scraped up the same leg on a metal spike at the circus. Thank goodness for my mom, sister, Ryan, Alla and Erin or I would be a crazy person by now. I'm holding out hope that May will be much better than April. Come on MAY!

In April, I missed all the meetings I intended to go to and all my fitness bootcamps. It's a bummer - especially about the bootcamps. I LOVED every workout with Mandy and hope to get back in soon - you know, after my sprained ankle heals. Seriously, WTF sprained ankle?

Because of all this craziness, my #1 goal got pushed to the back burner and my health/fitness took a backseat. I chose to think of this month as a period of personal reflection instead of a month long cheeseburger/slack fest!

I have used this time to look back at my weight loss journey and have found out something exciting - I have lost almost 10 pounds since this time last year. Before I joined WW in November, I lost 4 pounds and have since lost another 5 (somehow, I was good this past month even though I wasn't tracking!) YESS!

After having a month to reflect and thinking about what I want in my life, I decided that some changes need to happen to my plan. In order to reach your goals, you have to make them attainable. 

Sometimes this means backing off the "I'm going to look like Brooklyn Decker in a bikini!" goal when you're 5'3 and pear shaped, but sometimes this means simply removing obstacles that hinder your success. My obstacle is physically getting to the meetings. I will now be doing my WW online and weighing in at home. 

I will still track and follow my program, but in order to make myself accountable again I will take that part of my life and make it much, much easier. Gone are the days of "Couldn't get to a meeting - no weigh in!" Now I just have to walk in to my bathroom and step up!

I have ordered a WW scale to make it more "official" and will be posting the first week of results next Monday - stay tuned!

PS: Longest. Blog post. Ever. I am verbose today!

Weigh in Whatday?

You may have noticed the lack of the promised Weigh in Monday this week - I haven't been able to make it to Weight Watchers. My mom is out of the country and my dad is sick, so I'm barely even able to get to my house this week, much less a WW meeting. I miss my house y'all. 

Hopefully I can get to a meeting next week, but I highly doubt it. So I'm just going to call April a wash on Weigh in Monday and WW. I'm going to keep eating well, keep walking and hopefully get in for a freaking workout this week (I have not been in to see Mandy since mid-March which hurts - I loved my bootcamp and wish I could be back in it). 

I can't wait until this God-forsaken month is over!

Weigh in Monday - 4/11/11

This is a less legit Weigh in Monday than normal because I haven't set foot in a Weight Watchers meeting in a month. One whole month guys! I need to get it together!

I have been weighing myself at home each week and found that I have lost 4 pounds the week of the Great 2-Day Internship Disaster of 2011. Stress is a helluva thing.

So I'm going to count this as a reset from all my hedonism in March and go back to WW next weekend to get my real stats back! Tune in next Monday for a "for real" Weigh in Monday!

No Weigh In Monday!

Oh noes!

Someone's little dog is not feeling well so she is taking him in to the vet before a meeting today and didn't make it to WW as a result. So no official weigh in Monday :O(

I did weigh myself at home and was somehow the same weight as my last weigh in Monday (using the 2lb difference between my scale and the WW one), so yay to that!

Weigh in Monday - 2/28/11

Weigh in Monday will be back next week - I have to work all day and will be missing my meeting :o(

The good news is that I tracked almost every day this week, ate well and stuck to my goals pretty closely - hoping next week is the same!

Weigh in Monday - 2/21/11

Sha-na-na - lost a pound! I didn't make all my goals this week (I tracked 4 out of 7 and wanted 7 of 7; ate out a bit much), but I did manage to keep it under control in other ways - limited adult beverages to two evenings with a three drink max and stuck to this - even on Valentine's Day! Those calories add up folks.


Next week: more eating at home - my goal is eating dinner in 4 days this week; more exercise (want to ride to work on Saturday) and getting that 7/7 tracking goal!


Today's weight loss: 1 lb
Total weight loss: 4.2
Pounds left to lose: 25.8