Week 0 Weigh-In at Weight Watchers!

I missed Weight Watchers too much! I missed the people, the support. I missed tracking points (who would’ve thought)! I missed having something to hold me accountable. I was going to wait a few months to go back, but I just couldn’t. It was an integral part of my success the first time around and I want it to be this time as well.

So I’m back at WW! I made the decision last night and my meeting was this morning. I went to my old meeting and was super happy to see familiar faces and to be greeted so warmly. I was a little embarrassed to go in having gained so much weight back, but everyone was wonderful. I got a free starter kit with some fun new toys and I got a whole lot of motivation and support which is just what I was looking for.

Now, I know I already lost some weight, but from here out I’m going to use today’s weight as my starting weight, just for simplicity’s sake because that will be my starting weight for WW. SO, my starting weight is officially…

335.2!

I don’t know why it went up so much from my last at-home weigh in, but oh well! It might just be that I was wearing clothes and shoes which I do not do when I weigh at home. All that matters is that it goes down next week.

I’ve somewhat arbitrarily decided my goal weight is 165. So that means I have 170.2 to lose. Time to start tracking!

Gen

 

Finally a Good Day

So I’m back. Again.

Does this make 4? It’s getting hard to keep track. I’ve been back at weight watchers, going to meetings and attempting to track points, for 3 weeks now I think? I’ve been gaining every week. I’ve had the “I’ll start tomorrow so better eat as much as I can tonight” mindset this whole time, until today.

Today I tracked, today I stayed within my points, today I didn’t binge eat pizza and ice cream telling myself it would be the last time. I’m sure I’ll have a gain at my meeting again tomorrow but I’m going to keep this going and maybe next week I’ll finally see a loss. And hopefully I’ll come back here to talk about it with you either way.

Gen

A Gain, But Good Too

Whamp whamp.

I can tell you exactly what my problem was this past week – boredom eating. I am in between jobs so am home all day and I eat like every half hour! The stuff I ate wasn’t terrible, but there was waaaaayy too much of it. I gained 2.6lb. Ouch.

But you know what? I went to my meeting even knowing I had gained. That’s a win. And it was my third meeting back, which means I’ve made it longer than I did last time around! I’m not happy I gained, but I’m happy I’m still here.

I also signed up for the local community center last week! I have gone swimming, used their fitness center, and taken zumba and yoga classes! I feel really  good about that. Also, it’s a half-hour walk away, so I’m getting my walking in as well.

Also, I got a job!!! My friend convinced me to interview with Starbucks and I got it. Hopefully that will help with the boredom eating! I’m excited to have a bit of a normal job again, and one that’s pretty flexible around my film shoot schedules.

I just want a loss this Sunday, even a small one. Hope all of your weeks are going well!!

Gen

Weigh-In Week 1 and Motivational Crafts!

I did it! 8.6lb lost this week! I know early losses are generally pretty big (at least for me), but man does this feel good!

This week was a little rough trying to get back on plan, but I kept on trying. The thing I did right was make sure to track everything, even when I didn’t want to. That was my goal for the week, simply to track. I went over my weekly points multiple times, but I still tracked it! It helped me be more mindful so when I went over it was a choice and not just mindless habit. That’s a good start!!

Also, while eagerly (impatiently) anticipating this morning’s meeting I did some craft projects! First, I was going through the Weight Watchers online store and saw a bracelet I really wanted. It said “Never give up” on it. This is what I really need in the forefront of my mind right now! However, the bracelet was $25 plus shipping 😦 So, until I can afford that I made my own! Bought some alphabet beads and elastic string from the Dollar Tree for 2 bucks 🙂

Visual reminders of my goals and of how far I’ve come help me a great deal! Anything to keep my eyes on the prize. Also from the Dollar Tree For a grand total of $7 I made weight-loss jars. If you haven’t heard of this, you put stones (or whatever) equal to the amount of pounds you want to lose in one jar (or whatever), then as you lose those pounds they get transferred to an empty jar. It’s a good way to be able to see a representation of your progress!

I can’t wait to get home and move 8 of those babies over!!

Hope you guys are having a good week! I can’t wait to see more posts from you all!

Gen

Third Time’s a Charm???

This is my first week at Weight Watchers this go-round. I have been here twice before. The first time I was ridiculously successful, losing 105lb in 10 months. Then I took a break from the program while I went on a long-distance walk. I gained on my walk but nothing too drastic (for me anyway), but for some reason it was really, really difficult to jump back in to WW. I wanted to, I missed everyone at my meetings and I missed feeling good about how I ate, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go back. After a few months I finally made it in, but didn’t stay long. I think I went 2 or 3 weeks before I stopped again. Why? I couldn’t say exactly.

I found out pretty recently that I have bipolar 2 disorder. One of the things that means for me is that I sink into depression pretty regularly. One thing I’ve started to learn is that I have to jump and make good choices when I’m in a good head-space. This past week has been pretty great for me! I don’t know if it’s the new meds taking effect or if I am just finally out of my last depressive phase. Either way, I’ve been unnaturally productive, cleaning my whole house, writing songs, putting together a puzzle, getting overdue work done.

I’ve been feeling pretty down on myself lately, in part because of yet another failed attempt at romance, and I wanted to do something to feel better about myself. I bought some new make-up, a cute sweater and a necklace I’ve been wanting. I knew these things were just temporary though, and I wanted a long term solution. I wanted to be more in-charge of my life, more confident, working actively toward a better me.

My productive mood combined with this want led me to pull out the damned credit card and sign back up. The next morning I left my house at 6:00am to walk the 3 miles to my meeting. Back to my old (good) routine.

I have gained 75lb from my lowest weight and I have crept back up too close to 300lb for comfort. I am very optimistic that I can get back into the plan this time, but definitely have the fear that it’ll be a repeat of my last failed attempt. I have to focus on how good it feels to be on plan and in charge of my food (and not the other way around).

I want to make this a clean start. I will leave my old stats up but start fresh with new numbers. I will still refer to the old ones, but this is a new start, I don’t want to combine it with my last attempts. I hope to be as successful as my first go-round and then to stay for lifetime!

Best wishes ❤

Gen

Back From My 7-Month Walk!

Walking the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes in Idaho

Hi!! Hi hi hi, hello everyone!

If you were following me 8 months ago, you know I had lost over 100 pounds and then made a crazy decision to try to walk across the United States. Well, I walked for 7 months, from Oregon to Texas, and made it almost 1,600 miles! If you’re interested in that adventure you can check it out here:

Facebook page for my walk

All my photos from the walk

So, now I’m home and it is time to focus on getting back on track!

During my walk I was not on plan, I wasn’t paying any attention to points. I was only worried about having food that was in my budget, wouldn’t spoil, and was light and compact enough to not weigh down my cart too terribly. My staples were: pop tarts, granola bars, tuna in pouches, instant mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and pizza burritos (pepperoni and string cheese in a tortilla). For the most part it was not exactly the healthiest fare in the land. And you can bet that after walking days at a time in between anything resembling civilization, that I chowed down on the most delicious thing I could find when I finally made it to a restaurant or even gas station.

Stopped for a snack somewhere in Montana

But Gen (you might be thinking) you were walking all day every day, didn’t that offset poor eating habits? Unfortunately, not as much as I had hoped. Due mostly to pain in my feet/ankles/knees/everything, I only walked about 10 miles a day and took frequent rest days. In short, I actually gained weight on my walk. Which I’m ok with! It was such a cool experience, it was most definitely worth a setback on my weight-loss journey.

So, I got home at the beginning of December but just this week made it back to a Weight Watchers meeting. I think I was embarrassed that I had gained so much and also wanted to have an “excuse” to not track for a while longer. So Christmas and the New Year happened, with lots of poor choices and a couple of quality binges thrown in for good measure. Finally this past snowy Sunday I walked the familiar roads back to my meeting!

When my cart broke down the ladies from my meeting all chipped in to get me a new one! They’re so amazing!!

It was so cool to see everyone again, and awesome to see some great progress in others! The scale told me a sobering truth: I had gained 41.6 pounds since the week I left for my walk. I’d be willing to guess almost half of it had been gained in the month I had been back home. A big blow to be sure, but I was back in my meeting and looking forward to regaining some control!

It’s taken me half the week to ease back into it, but I am finally tracking again and my home scale has already gone done quite a bit! Good ol’ water weight will hopefully make my first week back a big success. I look forward to catching up with everyone and finding new blogs to follow, I am so happy to dive back into this awesome and supportive community!

Here we go!!

Gen

Weigh-In Week 39 – I’ve Lost 100Lb!

Current weight: 225.2

Lost this week: 3.6

Total lost: 100.2!!!

Phew! I finally reached 100Lb lost! Finally is not the best word I guess – it’s actually only been about 9 months since I’ve started, and I am truly crazy happy with my progress.

It was nice; I usually don’t weigh in with my leader but she happened to be open so this time I did. I knew it was going to be a close call and I think I had a pretty exaggerated look of anticipation on my face as I stared at the readout, and the other receptionist laughed at me. My leader looked at the screen to see what I was worried about and when she saw I had hit 100 she threw her hands in the air and gave me a hug. I got a little choked up but regained my composure pretty quickly as they congratulated me.

I thought I’d be ok after that, even when I announced it in the meeting I was playing it cool, and everyone started clapping for me, then people stood for me, then I kind of lost it and started crying a bit. Oh well. Another member gave me a hug, and it was all very sweet, but I was a little overwhelmed and took off as soon as the meeting was over. Ah, but not before I got this:

A pretty new charm for my collection!

After I left the meeting I had the desire to celebrate, which of course immediately translated to ice cream. I knew that would be a very silly way to celebrate weight loss, but the idea wouldn’t get out of my head. I went to the store and I stared. I stared at the ice cream. After a minute I walked to the other side of the store and stared at the chocolate. I gave myself permission to get one of those things if that’s what I really wanted, but reminded myself how good it would feel to make a better choice. I left the store with a bag of…….

oranges! Haha. And it really did feel damn good. That little voice in there knows what she’s talking about, I think I should start listening to her more often!

All right, no rest for the weary, next stop 220!

Gen

Weigh-In Week 38 and Changing Your Mindset

Current weight: 228.8

Lost this week: 6.4

Total lost: 96.6

Well, I weighed-in 3 days late this week because my normal meeting is on sunday and Weight Watchers was closed for the easter holiday. I am very happy because I was convinced I was going to have another gain this week, but looks like I was definitely wrong. The one good thing about a quick, large binge-gain like that is it seems to come off fairly quickly once I get back on track. Even this past week of slowly easing into getting back on plan (but still making pretty poor choices a lot of the time) has lost me 6.4 of the 9lb I had gained.

My big goal right now (besides reaching that illusive 100) is to get under 220 before I leave on my walk (which is in 4 weeks BTW!!!). Mainly because I bought a camping stool ($1 on cragslist!) that is only rated to 220lb. I wanna be able to sit on my stool 🙂 That’s about 2.2lb a week, so that’s what I’m aiming for.

I was anxious at the meeting today because it wasn’t my regular group and I didn’t know anyone there. The leader seemed super nice, but was enthusiastic to the extreme and would clap for anything and everything. I can see how that would be a good fit for some people but it was a bit much for me to handle and I sat in the back trying to hide the whole time. It was pretty serendipitous that I happened to choose that particular meeting to attend though: a man was celebrating losing 156lb. That is EXACTLY how much I need to lose in total to get to a healthy BMI. Now, there are lots of extremely inspiring success stories in my regular meeting, including a few women that have lost 100lb each, but there is no one who has lost what I am trying to lose. It was pretty cool to see a living example in front of me that what I am trying to accomplish is in fact achievable.

The message I got from the meeting was about self-care. It was about changing the way you think about the process; instead of thinking of things in terms of points and will or won’t this lead to a gain, try shifting to thinking about things in terms of self-care. ‘Will this choice help me to feel good, will it help me be healthy and strong?’ Instead of ‘Is this in my points for the day?’

It is good to be aware of and track points of course, but really thinking about the reason behind the decisions and behind this entire journey I think will help me tremendously. When I stopped smoking I learned it’s all about the way you look at things, it really is ALL about your mindset. I’ve been trying to translate that into eating and I think this is a good step.

Here’s to being healthier and happier, not just weighing less 🙂

Gen

Ugh. Blah. Blergh.

I don’t even feel like doing my normal weigh-in post. I gained. A lot. Like, A LOT a lot.

My friend was in town for a whole week. I loved seeing him, I loved that he came up here, I just don’t love how it screwed up my routine and how poorly I handled it. Terrible choices happened all week long, and have continued on since he left. I gained 9 freakin pounds in one week my friends, and I’m sure it hasn’t stopped yet.

Things started out fine, I made choices that were indulgent compared to my normal habits, but I was keeping the portions reasonable. As the week continued it just got out of control. By the end of the week I had totally given up trying and after he left I started truly bingeing. As you probably know I was so close to losing 100 pounds. I am frustrated.

I obviously still have a whole lot of work to do, the reminder that the old habits are still there just waiting to be let out… it’s so depressing. On my next shopping trip I will stock up on the good stuff and try to wrangle this monster back into submission. I’m so tired of eating till I feel sick. I’m tired of cookies and chocolate and pizza and brownies. I’m just tired. I would have been okay with gaining because my friend was in town, I am NOT okay with the spiraling that happened after he left. I’m trying to be gentle with myself. It’s not easy.

I’m definitely not giving in or giving up, I just sometimes wish the fight wasn’t this hard. Big setbacks like this are just kind of soul-sucking.

Sorry for the bummer post, I almost didn’t even write anything this week but I feel like admitting to you guys what’s going on will help me get back on track.

Here are my March photos. I almost didn’t put these up either because I took them before I gained a gazillion pounds back, but I think I look pretty damn good in them and I know I’ll get back there soon. Oh yeah, I don’t think I mentioned yet that I shaved off my hair 🙂 So yeah, that’s a thing that happened.

I’m pretty sure I’ll have another gain this week, but I feel the tides turning and I think pretty soon here I’ll be back in control. I think I need a plan of attack, I need to develop a strategy for the next time this happens. ohfiuhiuhgnphqwefouywgjnooifnkjdfhofjg. And that’s all I have to say about that.

See ya next time, hopefully a little more cheerful.

Gen

Weigh-In Week 36 and No Cigar!

Current weight: 226.2

Lost this week: 2.2

Total lost: 99.2

So close!! I should have worn my sauna suit again! Hah. Ah well. I’m very happy with 2.2 when according to my usual pattern I should have had a smaller loss this week.

New weirdness this week: my knuckles look strange! I must be losing weight in my hands because I noticed when my fingers are closed into fists my knuckles are extra pronounced. Add that to the list of things that never occurred to me would happen! 🙂

This will be a short post because I have to get back to cleaning – my friend is coming up to visit me tomorrow! He’ll be staying with me for a whole week. That is awesome, but we were always slight enablers for each other when it came to food and plus I worry about my eating habits around other people anyway. I find it’s much easier to give in to poor choices when It’s not just me.

So, I’m going to try not to lose sight of that .8lb I want to lose this week and we’ll see what happens!

Calmly waiting to see if Alison beats me to 100,

Gen