Damn You Heat

Happy Independence Day week! This week has been unbearably hot. The humidity was well over 50% every day and we had real-feel temps of over 100 for five days. When the weather gets like this there is no cooking. It's just too hot. Especially since there is only AC in my bedroom and the rest of the apartment can get into the 80s or 90s. This means a horrible diet. I didn't eat much over the last five days, or I ate out at restaurants because it was just too hot to want to turn the stove on. This lead to my first week gaining weight since I have been on Weight Watchers. I am so thankful that the heat broke yesterday.

Today I went grocery shopping and stocked up on all sorts of healthy foods like fruits, veggies, turkey, cheese, eggs, and hummus (chocolate dessert hummus, it's to die for!). I am more than ready to get back on track and start losing again. I am mad at myself for letting the heat get to me and ruin my eating habits, but that is going to happen from time to time. There is nothing that I can do to change it, I can only look forward and plan on healthy meals again.

I also haven't gotten to the YMCA either. It's so hard to find time to work out because my son refuses to do anything at the gym with me, and I have him all day every day except every other weekend. I love having him around, but there are times when I just want to get out, get to the gym, and spend some time on the machines without having to fight with him to get out of the house because we aren't going to do something HE wants to do. He likes going swimming there, but I can't take him swimming and work out at the gym at the same time. Right now I can't even go swimming because I have a fresh tattoo that is still healing (open wound and chlorine...NOPE). They have a "kid zone" room there where kids can go and the parents can go work out, but it's more of a daycare for younger kids, so there isn't much for him to do there. I am sure he doesn't want to hang out with a bunch of toddlers! It's tough, I just need to find a balance or try and find a machine that he will like (haha good luck with that) so that we can exercise together.

At any rate, that is about all that has been going on lately. Just trying to keep my head above water and keep the scale moving in the right direction. Here's to a week of healthy food and maybe some walks since it's not so hot anymore!

Frustrations, Gains, and Losses

Hi everyone! It's been a frustrating week, to say the least. Even though I have continued eating well and staying within a healthy range for my points this week, I had gained 4 pounds back. I think I have dropped a couple over the last few days, we will see tomorrow when I weigh-in. I have tried not to weigh myself every day because it stresses me out when I put on a pound or two, even though there are so many reasons why that could happen.

I am having trouble reaching my points for the day. I can't seem to eat all of the points that they want me to eat, but I can't lower my daily point limit because it's set to what will fuel your body the best for the best weight gain without starving yourself. I am trying to load up on points in the morning to burn off through the day. I eat cheese, or a bagel with peanut butter, or granola. Lunch is my biggest problem. I don't like eating lunch, I am never hungry until 3pm and by that time it's almost dinner. I generally have a snack type food like fruit and veggies or something like that, but it certainly doesn't help me to rack up any points. It's a matter of balance and I need to find the balance. I lose more when I eat all of my points for the day so I really have to make sure that I am eating enough. Today I only have four points left so I may have a beer before bed. I had a grilled chicken salad for supper and added some cheese and ranch to it but only ate half of it, if that, so it didn't help with points either. I was pretty envious of my ex-hubs though, he had a delicious looking steak and cheese calzone that looked so so good.

I had too many points left for the day so I brought the kiddo out for ice cream after supper. I had a small one-scoop cotton candy ice cream which was 7 points (and so worth it).

I was talking to ex-hubs the other day about maybe getting the courage to sing in a band once my son is grown and I have more free time. He said that he may have me come on for a song with his band if I wanted to and I reminded him that I have no stage presence. I told him that despite how much I love karaoke, I hate being up on stage. I always feel like people are judging me for the way that I look (even though I know that my friends aren't, but others who I don't know I feel that they are). He told me that no, they were judging me for my amazing voice, not by the way I look. I love him for that, he reminded me of something positive when I was down on myself. I need more of that because I forget too often that I do have some positive qualities about me. After being teased and bullied my entire life because of my looks, it is hard to escape from the grips of a lack of self-esteem.

So I guess that is all today. Weigh-in day tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Citrus Rosemary Chicken Recipe and More!

Okay, so I will start with the recipe for this delightful chicken:

1 pound of boneless, skinless chicken tenders or chicken breasts
1 lemon
1 orange
a few sprigs of rosemary
salt and pepper
1/4 cup water

Slice the lemon and the orange. Place the chicken in the pressure cooker and season with salt and pepper, put the slices of citrus on top. Squeeze some lemon juice onto the chicken before completely covering. Pour the 1/4 of a cup of water on top of the chicken. Place the rosemary sprigs on top. Cook on high pressure for 14 minutes. Voila!

So easy, fragrant, and delicious!!

I took a slice of the orange out after cooking and shredded it and put it on top of the chicken. It gave a sweet little kick.





So now onto the "more". I have been doing really well and I am proud of continuing this for almost a full month now. Tomorrow is my weigh-in so I will see how much I have lost this week. As of last Friday I had lost 9.6 pounds in three weeks. Tomorrow will show my total loss for the entire month. I am actually excited to step on the scale as crazy as that sounds.

I am trying not to weigh myself every day anymore because it is discouraging when the scale goes up. I know that there are a variety of reasons for it, and I know that none are my diet because I have been eating really really well. I have also been adding in a lot more exercise which can pack on some weight due to the inflammation of muscle repair. I did my dumbbell exercises last week, but as an experiment stopped this week to see if I lost more weight. I will resume my dumbbell exercises on Saturday.

On Tuesday I went for a nice mile-long walk on a local trail with my son and his father. It was so great to be out in the fresh air and to have some family time together where we were moving and bettering ourselves. I am hoping that we can do this at least once per week. Monday and Wednesday consisted of YMCA days where I did 2 water aerobics classes on Monday and 1 class on Wednesday plus a little gym time. I am hoping I can keep that up as well as I really don't move as much as I should if I am trying to become healthier.

I am so thankful for the massive amount of support that I have had from my friends and family through this journey so far. It is nice to know I have people in my corner cheering me on. Thank you all :)

Ups and Downs: Stopping exercise?

I didn't realize it's been almost a week since I wrote anything...

It has been a long week. I gained weight instead of losing even though I stayed under my points every single day last week. I didn't quite understand it but then thought for a minute about what I had done differently between this past week and the week before. Exercise. I did my 8 pound dumbbell routine every single day. I know that the weight gain was most likely gaining muscle and water retention, but it is still discouraging to see that scale go up again. And I know, the scale is not a determining factor on this journey, but it feels so much better when it goes down instead of up.

I am going to experiment this week and take a week off of my dumbbell schedule to see if that makes a difference. If it does, I will only do it every other week instead of every week. I still want to tone and build muscle, but I want to lose weight as well. I become frustrated and discouraged easily so I have to make sure that I am doing what I need to in order to stay on it. I will continue doing cardio and swimming at the YMCA though.

Although it was fun swimming with the kiddo, I found it to be very difficult after about 10 minutes with my shoulder. I just couldn't swim using my right arm. I was trying to race Cody and found that certain strokes were easier than others, but it still hurt. I have to take it easy or else I am going to hurt my shoulder more than it already is and I certainly don't want that!

I have also found that food with sugar alcohols gives me INTENSE stomach pain. I tried HaloTop ice cream this week but due to the sugar alcohols, I think I am going to have to give it up. The two times I have eaten it I have felt like I was being stabbed in the stomach. This also happened when I had sugar free Cool Whip. So, no more sugar alcohols. I will eat things with Stevia or real sugar and simply cut down on how much I eat. Last night I brought the kiddo for ice cream for supper and had a real ice cream. It was delicious and I still dropped three pounds.

Mental Illness and the After-Effects

Most people who know me know that I am generally a bright and shiny person with a happy attitude. Those who really know me know that the last six or seven years were hell. I was battling some pretty deep depression. It never got to the point where I ever thought about harming myself, but it was bad enough that it affected almost every part of my life.

There were days when I didn't even want to get out of bed. Most days I would get up, work, and then go right back and lay down in my bed with the kiddo in my room with me and we would hang out an watch TV or play board games.  I didn't want to come out of my room. Other than Cody, nothing else really seemed important. I became extremely lazy and just kind of stopped cleaning. It got out of control and now my house is a disaster that is looming in front of me. I have been trying to clean it little by little, but it's so overwhelming that it is hard to keep up with everything else that I have going on. Whenever someone tries to come in the house I will make an excuse so that doesn't happen. I don't want people here, seeing what years of depression has done to me and my life. I want to keep that happy demeanor for those who see me outside of my house. I am embarrassed to even have the maintenance guys here to fix things because my house is so awful.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have like piles of rotting food on the floor or anything like that. I have a LOT of clutter. I have a LOT of clothes that are all over the place because I keep buying more and have no place to put them, but can't seem to get rid of the ones I don't wear anymore because I think, "Well when I lose weight I can wear it." I just want to get this place clean. I want to be able to have people over. I want to get a new couch. I can't do that until I clear up space in my bedroom to put stuff that is in the living room. I want to be able to make a weekly cleaning schedule and actually stick to it instead of doing something and then getting distracted by another thing and forgetting about the cleaning that I was doing.

This has to be a part of my transformation. Along with losing weight and eating better, I have to set aside time every single day to clean something. I have been doing okay for the last week or so. I have been washing the dishes pretty much every day instead of letting them sit for a few days until I have run out of dishes to use. I have tackled my bedroom a bit and thrown a lot of stuff away, but I still have so much more to do. I want to move out of this apartment eventually and with as much stuff as I have right now, that's not possible because I would never be able to move it all. I need to downsize. I really want to rent one of those giant dumpsters to put in the driveway so I can just throw stuff over the balcony and be done with it. With only one good arm it's hard to bring more than one or two bags down with me when I go downstairs.

I also want to try and be more active every day. I went to the gym the other day and even though I wasn't there for long, I still felt good about getting out and moving. I couldn't help but to feel guilty the whole time though because I thought about all of the other things that I could have been doing while I was away. I have to get out of that mindset as well. Can we have more hours in the day, please??

Eating-wise things have been going well. I am back to losing weight after those couple of bad days and am now down a total of 12.8 pounds. I just need to make sure that I am eating through the day and that I hit those points. Last night I saved points for beer that I thought I was going to have but ended up not going out, so I instead ate walnuts and veggies with ranch dip to use up some points. I didn't want to have anything with sugar or carbs since it was right before bed.

Phew...sorry for the long-winded post. I had a maintenance guy come over today and I was so embarrassed by the condition of this apartment, I needed to rant. He was really sweet and when I apologized for the mess he said, " I am not here to judge you, sweetheart. I am just here to make sure your apartment is okay and that you don't have any lead. You are fine."

Feeling Better

I had a much better day yesterday! I managed to eat all three meals successfully and dropped 2 pounds. That may also have been due to a few other things as well.

I went to work out in a gym for the first time in a long time yesterday. I didn't get much done, 20 minutes on the elliptical and 15 on the stationary bike, but I did it. I was having a hard time towards the end on the elliptical but I pushed through and stayed moving until the end. My right leg cramped up and my shoulder was on fire, but I got onto the stationary bike and did some more. Today I am going to go for a hike around a local pond that we have that has a nice mile-long trail. I am hoping that the rain holds off until I am done, although it may cool me down a little!!

This morning I didn't wake up until 9:30am so I had to have a late breakfast, but I ate that is the important part. I had a bowl full of watermelon, a Thomas's thin bagel with peanut butter, and some walnuts. I have 25 points left for today and will be having a salad at night so I still have plenty of points for snacks and lunch.

Positive vibes today everyone!!

You Had a Bad Day

Yesterday was NOT a good day foodwise. I didn't eat breakfast, I didn't eat lunch, and I hardly ate anything at dinner. I went out to dinner with my son and his father and we decided that we were going to go to Texas Roadhouse. As much as I wanted some of that bread with cinnamon butter, I didn't eat it because I knew it would equal a lot of points. The problem was that I hadn't eaten anything so I should have had it because I needed to eat 41 points! I stayed away though, but it was difficult. I also stayed away from my usual dinner choice of ribs because they tend to be fatty and I knew that would rack up the points as well. Yet again, I should have just eaten it. I ordered a chicken breast with BBQ sauce on the side, mashed potatoes, and fresh veggies. I only ate half of the chicken, didn't put a ton of BBQ on it, had 3/4 of the mashed potatoes, and ate a few carrots and that's it.

I was so hungry when we went out but yet I didn't even get halfway through my meal. I know it sounds dumb, but I think it is because of this app that I have. I downloaded an app where you listen to a track before you go to bed, it's called Lose Weight. It is supposed to use hypnosis to stop you from overindulging in food. As crazy as it sounds, I have not eaten anywhere near the amount of food that I would have normally. Even if it's healthy food, I don't eat that much. I really can't tell if it is the app working or just my mindset that I should be portioning my food, but either way, it is working.

I was set on making today a better day but I still have yet to eat breakfast so it's not going well so far. I am going to have to make something and have a really late breakfast. I will be making a chicken casserole tonight for supper but it's not going to be worth many points so I have to eat something for breakfast and have to eat a good lunch too, or have some snacks. It will take time to find that balance I am sure.

Some Sacrifices Must Be Made

Yesterday my son wanted to go to Friendly's for supper. He had been pretty well-behaved for the day and has been doing well in school, so why not? Well, I was sad to find out that I will no longer be eating at Friendly's. There was not a single thing on the menu that I could have without using some serious points. It just wasn't worth it to me. He ate while I gazed longingly at his grilled cheese. Sacrifices have to be made for the end goal, that is just how it's going to have to be.

We got home and I still had 26 points left for the day but it was late and I didn't want to eat anything too packed with sodium or carbs, but I had to eat at least 16 more points to be considered in a "healthy eating zone" for the day. I got a turkey sub with mustard, no mayo, and homemade potato chips with no salt. I didn't eat many of the chips because I didn't want to eat too many carbs, and I picked off some of the bread too. It wasn't the best and not really what I should have eaten that late at night, but I had to eat something. Ended up with 9 points left for the day.

My goal going forward is to make sure that I eat the bulk of my points for breakfast and lunch so I can have a light dinner. I find that I lose more when I don't have a lot of carbs or salt after 4pm so I am going to try and stick to that (except for tonight when there is beer involved). For breakfast this morning I had a few pieces of chicken and some strawberries, worth 0 points. I am going out to lunch and will be having drinks later tonight so I want to make sure I conserve my points.

There is definitely a learning curve with this lifestyle, but so far I am down 10.9 pounds and have lost some of my hips, so I know it's working. I just need to make sure that I stick with it. I also need to find some new things to eat for breakfast because eggs every single morning is getting old quickly.

It's Been...a Day

I have had kind of an off day today. I think it is just the weather. Cold and gloomy. I actually remembered to eat breakfast this morning though, so that is a plus. I wasn't super hungry around lunchtime so I made a shake instead of food. Ended the night with a turkey sandwich, Cheez Its, and a Skinny Cow ice cream bar. Still have 10 points left for the day.

I really don't have a whole lot to say tonight. I honestly don't know why I am bothering with a blog post...Just feeling listless today because of a few different things. I will feel better about myself one day, I hope, but for now, it's hard to when I feel invisible.

Sorry to bring everyone down. I think I need to hit the hay.

Under-eating and Overheating

I did not do well today. I wasn't able to fall asleep until 4:45am. I am not sure why, probably because it is so hot. I don't sleep well in the heat. I was woken up at quarter to seven by the kiddo, and then again at 8:30 by the cats and that was that. I forgot about breakfast because I was so tired. We had to go out and run some errands and by that time it was already 10am. We did the errands we had to do and then came back home for lunch. I had a bowl of fruit and some shredded chicken which amounted to a whopping 0 points. I had an iced coffee from Dunkins with skim milk, raspberry, and mocha, but that still only came to 6 points.

I didn't drink much water today either, only about 32 ounces. I had a vow renewal to photograph, so we went and did that. I almost passed out on the way back to the car because it was just too hot out and I didn't hydrate properly. My blood sugar was probably at rock bottom too at that point. So I sat in the car for a bit with the AC to cool down. I had 36 points to use for the day so I decided we would go to Cracker Barrel for supper since all I would have at home was a salad that was worth maybe 5 points. I still made sure that I tracked what I ate and that I was conscious of what I was putting in my body.

I ordered the Apple Cranberry BBQ grilled chicken with mashed potatoes and a bowl of fruit. The chicken was 3 points because I only ate half, the mashed potatoes were 3 because I only ate half, the fruit is 0 points. Only 6 points added...still 30 to go. Crap. I ate a biscuit and that added another 7 and had half of a cornbread, which was 3. Okay, another 10 points, only 20 to go. Good thing Cody wanted dessert. We got this campfire Smores thing and it looked delicious but I didn't want to go overboard. We each ate a quarter of it and then I packed the other half to go. I still have 13 points left for the day.

I was going to have some peanut butter or something as a snack but I am not feeling all that well because of the heat, so I guess I am going to end my day under points. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. At least I didn't go over so badly that I used a bunch of weekly points too. I am glad that tomorrow will be cooler so that I will feel a little better. Tonight is going to be a challenge for sleep even though I am exhausted, it's 88 degrees in my room right now. I have an ice pack on my neck, the fan going, and both windows open so hopefully some air will start circulating through soon. Tomorrow I am going to make sure that I eat breakfast so I don't have to scramble to try and eat points at the end of the day. I will make sure to drink a lot more water too.

Stumbling is all a part of the process! On the plus side I am 19 days soda-free and I don't miss it one bit.

I hope everyone is staying cool

First Official Weigh-In Day!

Today was my first official weigh-in day with Weight Watchers. I am down 5.8 pounds so far! I am excited but I am trying not to expect that much every week because I know that I won't lose that all the time. It's a great start though and great motivation to keep going.

When I went to the grocery store today I had one objective in mind..stay on the outside of the aisles, nothing from the center aisles. I actually did pretty well with that. I bought fruits, veggies, chicken, ham for the kiddo, salad fixins, skim milk, and a crap ton of sugar free/fat free pudding that I am going to make a ton of delicious shakes with. I stayed away from processed foods. I didn't even look at anything with sugar. I think the worst thing that I bought was the Skinny Cow ice cream bars (and even those are only 5 or 6 points each). It was expensive, but it will be worth it in the long run.

I don't know that I would really call today a "cheat" day as I still made sure that I didn't go too far over my points, but I decided to treat myself. I had a few more points at breakfast than normal because I had three slices of American cheese with my omelette/sandwich. I didn't have lunch, wasn't really hungry, and then for dinner we had pizza. Even then I still had a few points left. I didn't eat anything else today but I did have a couple of beers when I went out to karaoke.

I bought a bathing suit (Ugh) today so that I can take a couple of water aerobics classes that they have at the Y. I am going to see if Cody will do them with me, but at least if he doesn't want to they have the Kid Zone so I can go to class and he can go hang out with some kids in the meantime. I used to do water aerobics with my mother when I was younger and I thought it was lame because I was a sullen teenager, but I now know how great the resistance in the water is for building muscle and burning calories. Plus, it is soooooo much easier on your joints which is one of the reasons I am choosing to do it.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can maintain this lifestyle without giving up yet again. I have so many "whys" that are pushing me to do this and to continue this for life. So many "whys".

I hope that everyone has a great three day weekend!

Help! I Need More Points!

I am finding it very difficult to consume the amount of points that they want me to eat per day. This morning I had an egg sandwich with cheese and then an egg on the side. For lunch I had a salad. For dessert after lunch I made a shake. For supper I had chicken, egg noodles, with a little pasta sauce and cheese. I still had 10 points left!! They like you to be within five for the day. I didn't feel like eating 2 sugar free pudding cups and wasn't feeling peanut butter, so I had a cupcake. Was it worth the 9 points? Nope. I am not even a big fan of cupcakes. Am I going to feel guilty? Nope, I am still under my points for the day by 1 point.

Tomorrow is my first official weigh-in. I am not going to expect too much because I know that 1-2 pounds per week is all you should be expecting, but I tend to weigh myself every day so I know that so far I have lost 4.2 pounds. Tomorrow I will see as to whether that has changed at all, but even if I gain a point today, I have still lost for the week! I am going to look at the positives.

That is about all I have for today. Pretty low-key day filled with the same foods that I had the day before with a few exceptions. I have 56 weekly points to use on top of the 42 daily points for tomorrow and we just may have pizza for supper. I am going to be very careful NOT to over-indulge so that I don't get off track, but man have I been craving some pizza.

Good night everyone!

A Treat to Eat!

I needed to eat more today. After I logged my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I still had 18 points left for the day. They tell you that you should eat your points and even give you a blue dot on your log if you come within 5 points left without going over by a ton. This blue dot signifies that you are within a healthy calorie range for the day. Breakfast was 8 points, lunch was 5, and dinner was 8. I have 42 daily points to use at this point and 52 weekly points. I still haven't touched the weeklies as I have not gone over my points for the day yet. So I was left with 18 points after meals were logged. I made a small shake this morning which you may have seen on my Facebook. It was delicious but it was only four points, so I still needed to find some points somewhere. I couldn't end my day with 17 points left.



It was time for a treat. No sugar-free, no low fat. Just a yummy treat. I got a kiddie size so that I didn't have the danger of over-indulging. I only ended up eating half of it and am still four points short for the day, but that is better than 17.

I also started a journey to get moving more. I joined the YMCA with my son so that we could go get some activity together. We went to play a little tennis today. I had to be very careful because of my shoulder (torn tendons and cartilidge), but it was fun and Cody had a good time. Normally it's so hard to get him out of the house and away from his videos and Youtubing, but he was actually excited to go and said that the Y sounded like fun. He did great!

So today I am feeling great. I stayed within my points and even had a yummy treat, got some exercise in, and introduced my son to a new activity. #Winning

Going Out to Eat - Thankful for the Tools I Have

Happy Taco Tuesday! That's right, it's that magical time of week when we get to eat tacos because the day of the week starts with the same letter as tacos. I promised Cody that is what we would have for supper tonight, but that also meant trying to figure out what to eat because beef can come with quite a few points depending on how it's prepared. I was thankful for the Weight Watchers app tonight for sure. They have an extensive list of restaurants and they show the points for almost every menu item. I was able to find out that I could have chicken soft tacos fresco at Taco Bell and they were only three points each. So that is what I ordered.

Fresco means that they take out everything that is dairy and replace it with pico de gallo. So there was chicken, lettuce, and pico, plus the taco sauce that I added. I will say this, they were nowhere near as good as the Naked Chicken Chalupa that I REALLY wanted. They weren't as good as regular tacos and I would take the extra few points to have cheese. But they were the better option and I don't feel guilty for eating them for dinner. It is nice to have the information at my fingertips if I do want to go out to eat to make sure that I don't go overboard with points. It is quite helpful. I have not been going out to eat as much lately as I am trying really hard to stay at home and eat healthy which has been saving me a lot of stress and money.

I made a delicious salad (I know, do those two words really go together?!) for lunch today and portioned it out so I can have it for the next two days as well. The strawberry poppyseed dressing that I used was only 1 point and was actually really delicious.

I have been attempting to drink more water through the day as I hardly ever drink liquids. My friend Liz gets on me about it every time she sees me. I cut out soda and have been soda free for 15 days now. Honestly, I don't really miss it. I only drank diet, but that still isn't great for you so I decided to stop drinking it. I have a goal of 60 ounces of water per day which is still less than I should be drinking per day, but it is so much more than I usually have. Baby steps. I have been doing pretty well so far, have met my water intake goal for the last four days. Sunday night I had over 100 ounces of water at the club. That was a little too much. Lol.

My weigh-in day is Friday. I am hoping to have lost 5 pounds by then but even if I stop at what I have already lost this week (3.4 pounds so far), I am not going to get discouraged. Healthy weight loss is around 2 pounds per week so I am still doing well.

I hope everyone had a great day today!

Weight Watchers, a New Journey to a New Me?

Hi everyone! Thanks for reading :) I will try and keep these posts short and sweet but sometimes I ramble.

As you can see from the past posts in this blog and from my Facebook, I have tried and failed, tried and failed, and tried and failed again at trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Why is this time different? It's not honestly. I have the same motivations that I had before. I may fail like I have before. I will have to get back up and dust it off. I need to do this. I am not getting any younger or any healthier.

I have always been heavy. I don't remember a time when I didn't have extra weight on me, even as a kid. I was tortured in school for being an overweight nerd. As you can imagine that leads to a lifetime of low self-esteem, depression, and more weight gain. Coupled with the oh so wonderful disorder called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, I have continued to gain more and more weight through the years. It really spiked after the birth of my son. I think I had post-partum depression but never got it diagnosed. Things spiraled out of control and I ended up over 100 pounds heavier in just a year. My marriage ended and that caused me to spiral even further. So now here I am, weighing 160 pounds more than before I got pregnant. Even then I wasn't at a super healthy weight. I have tried so many times to find something that worked for me to help me lose weight but I always get in my own way or life throws me a curveball that I cannot recover from.

I have said I am ready for this so many times and it has always ended in disaster. So this time I am going to say that I am going to give it the old college try and see where it goes. I joined Weight Watchers the other day after being inspired by one of my friends who has lost 56 pounds since October. The new plan that they have is so much easier to follow, or I am hoping it is. I am sure I will slip at one time or another. I still love pizza, tacos, and ice cream. There is no way around that. I just have to try and portion control my guilt foods. Deprivation never works. Moderation does.

So far I have been cooking healthy dishes for the last three days and drinking a lot more water than I usually do. Exercise will be introduced later, but I really want to get this food plan down first. I have lost 3.4 pounds over the course of three days and I am excited to see what my weigh-in on Friday will be. I am going to try not to weigh myself until then (I tend to weigh myself every day). I will share recipes and photos on the Facebook page that brought you here.

So, yeah...I rambled. I knew it would happen. If you are still reading, thanks!