Weight Watcher Update

It’s taken weeks and weeks and weeks, but I *finally* hit 80 (actually 81) pounds gone since Jan. 2011!

This past stretch was frustrating but I hung in there.  It wasn’t all the scale’s fault.  We’ve had so many “special” event dinners, both at restaurants and home.  Sometimes I’m not tempted, but other times I can’t help but order a burger instead of yet another salad.  I’ve been up as much as 4+ pounds from my last low weight, and it would take weeks to get that extra weight off.

I admit my tracking hasn’t been as faithful either, but I am working at it.  I definitely do better if I track every single day, even if I don’t eat the best.  It’s easier to get right on track again the next meal.

Power 90 has been a bust.  Sigh.  With our summer schedule, it’s just been impossible to get into a regular routine.  Kids are sleeping in late and staying up horribly late at night, making it difficult for us to sleep well.  They’re in and out to their various activities at all hours of the day and it never fails that I need to run someone to a friend’s house for a trip on my lunch… instead of working out.

So I’m going to forgive myself for failing to get Power 90 going right now.  I’ll try again once the kids are back to school this fall.  In the meantime, I’m going to continue doing my pushups as often as I can, and I’ll fit in whatever activities I can with the kids.  Princess wants to start doing Tae Bo, and since I have some Billy Blanks tapes, I’ll do them with her.  It’ll be a nice change of pace, and she needs the exercise as much as I do.

With today’s weigh in, I lost another point, which is making me nervous!  It’s harder and harder to stay within my daily range, especially if I don’t have exercise points to fill in the gaps.  That’s another reason my already slow weight losses have fallen to a molasses creep.  I really think the only reason I finally lost to a new low this past week is that I underate several days just because we were busy.  I can’t do that every day, nor should I.  So I’ve definitely got to get regular exercise built back into my routine, somehow, even if I don’t have a routine!

New foods or techniques:  we’ve been hitting the farmer’s market at least every other weekend and stocking up on things like cabbage, peppers, and zucchini.  Then instead of eating pasta, That Man and I use the sauteed veggies as the base.  Sometimes I’ll use a half of cup of pasta (2 pts) mixed with the veggies so I still get that mouth feel of pasta without as many points.  This even worked well with my “fancy spaghetti” that Littlest Monster requested for her birthday.  (Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I used turkey italian sausage and 93% lean ground beef to help cut some of the fat.)

So now just about every single night, I take my smaller iron skillet (10″) and cook just veggies in a little olive oil in addition to the main dish.  Sometimes I season it with just salt — other times I use curry and turmeric (makes it a nice bright yellow).  Princess will sometimes eat it, but usually it’s just That Man and me.  Although I sneaked green peppers into everyone’s main dish last night — a weekly favorite this summer that we call “noodle bowls” with soba noodles (only 3 pts per cup), lean beef stirfry with broccoli and whatever other veggies I can trick the kids into eating — and no one complained!