Posted under
Recipes,
diet by Catherine on March 10th, 2008 9:33 am
At the end of every busy season I revolt against eating out and eating anything fried and I get back on track with fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. Every busy season is a struggle between rewarding yourself with a decent meal when ordering out and avoiding weight gain. Its just another layer of stress to add on top of the stress work is already creating. This year was no different and while I didn’t gain more than 3 pounds it was 3 pounds I didn’t need to gain due to the steady gain I had the past 2 years.
The amazing thing was that the light bulb finally went off in my head: I am ready to go back on Weight Watchers and do it properly. No more Weight Watcheresque dieting, no more make up my own rules, no more pretending. I am finally doing it the right way on my own at home and can I tell you it feels great. I was very worried about feeling hungry all the time or sore when I go work out but after just completing week 1 I can happily report back that I did not feel hungry once nor extremely sore after my 5 workouts this week. I am officially pumped and restarted in the right direction.
Official week one loss: 2 pounds!
Posted under
diet by Catherine on March 18th, 2008 12:27 am
Well I just finished week 2 of my weight watchers lifestyle change. I call it a lifestyle change because that is what it truly is. There is not a lot of dieting involved because there are no restrictions on food except how much you eat.
So week 2 started off pretty well. I hit the gym 4 times: 2 sessions of cardio and 2 sessions of weights. Made a huge pot of healthy potato soup that was only 3 pts per cup that I feasted on most of the week but then Thursday hit. Thursday is where I fell off track last week. It started with lunch at Bennihana which is a Japanese Hibachi style restaurant. I thought I was being fairly healthy by ordering fried rice, salad, and then grilled shrimp and chicken. Well it wasn’t the best choice as once the chef started cooking I started noticing the butter he was putting on everything. Next time I think I’ll be ordering sushi from the sushi bar.
So while I was down that night with Weight Watchers, I continued my roll with going out for Mexican as my cheat night for the week. No healthy choices there haha but boy was it delicious. Then there was the pizza on Friday night after working out and Hard Rock Cafe Saturday afternoon with my friend before the play “Rat Pack: Live from the Sands”. But luckily it stopped after that.
To get back on track I made a favorite recipe of Mike and I’s: Chicken Rollups (recipe is in the cheesy chicken post) followed by cheeseburger macaroni hamburger helper last night. So I’m happy to report that I managed a 0 pound gain/loss last week and am officially back on the right path. If only I could throw this cold so that I can get back in the gym.
I’ve been doing Weight Watchers for 7 weeks now (middle of 8th week as we speak). To me, I have not seen any visible changes in my body shape but I know I am losing something somewhere as I’m down 6 pounds and have been lifting weights to firm up. I’m gradually seeing my little muscles poking out so I know its working.
Well I finally got fed up with wearing black or gray pants to work. I decided for kicks and giggles to try on a pair of my khakis that I bought last November/December which were the same style and brand of the black and grays but for some reason fit a little more snuggly. So after letting them sit for almost 5 months in my closet I took them out and tried them on again and guess what…
They are no longer too tight!!! Victory at last. So now I have khakis to rotate into my wardrobe. I’m hoping soon enough I can retry on all my old summer skirts and get back into wearing them. Pants get really dull and boring after a while. So I am motivated to keep going and see what else I can fit back into after long periods of time. I can’t wait to get back into my fabulous jeans and capris.
So lesson learned: you can see small differences with just a small weight loss. Every pound counts.
Posted under
diet by Catherine on March 24th, 2008 10:30 pm
I just completed week 3 of my new Weight Watchers life style. I like to think that I did pretty well with my eating out choices. You see I went home for Easter and my family loves to eat out on the weekends. So I decided instead of fighting to eat at home I would just start learning to make smarter choices while eating out because it is something I must tackle at some point in my journey so why not now?
So Friday afternoon (got off of work early)- went to the local favorite spot here in Houston: Berryhill’s which is known for its fish and shrimp tacos. I went with a seafood enchilada, a grilled fish taco, queso, chips, and just one margarita. (Note: the enchilada was tiny and the grilled fish taco actually makes 2 tacos so I ate just one). Notes: Good choice on the grilled fish taco and on just one margarita as well as 1/2 the rice and no beans. Need to work on the queso/chips thing. Not too bad.
Friday night: Well by the time I finished my 4 hour drive and met up with my family I was starving. Tried to hold out till I went to bed but that wasn’t working so I stopped in at McDonald’s. Under normal circumstances I would just go with a burger or cheeseburger (5/6 points) but since it was 11:30 they had neither -shocker- so I had to go with the quarter pounder with cheese. Well Friday quickly went downhill.
I decided not to let Saturday do me in. So I woke up and had some cereal with berries and skim milk like normal. Went out a bit with my mom then hit up walmart and got a lean cuisine and yogurt to hold me till dinner. I knew dinner out would be coming so I didn’t suggest eating out for lunch as well. We went to a fabulous little Italian restaurant that is known for their calzones but since I was trying to retrain myself I went with grilled chicken ceasar salad with dressing on the side. Score for me!
Sunday was another challenge as it was Easter Sunday and the day before my brother’s birthday. So that meant lunch out before I left to go home. This time it was Cheesecake Bistro (a knockoff of Cheesecake Factory). Once again I decided to stop at the salad and soup section of the menu instead of going on and settled for some awesome chicken and sausage gumbo and a ceasar salad. Score for me again!
So I’m happy to say that my training is going well for eating out and making smart choices. I also did pretty darn good at staying within my points during the week and saving flex points for Thursday night and Friday afternoon. What I did slack up on was exercising which is not good. So this week I’ll be heading back to the gym and making it a habit to go daily.
Final results for the week: -2 pounds!! So I’m officially -4 pounds in 3 weeks.
Posted under
Recipes,
diet by Catherine on March 31st, 2008 11:23 am
Well week 4 has just come to an end on my Weight Watchers diet. I had some pretty big ups and downs this week on my diet. I think we all remember my Crawfish Fettuccini post which represented pretty well how the rest of the week went. I ended up making chicken italian sausage on Tuesday night to finish up the pasta but it just wasn’t the same as what my heart was set on but I ate it and got over my disappointment. I did learn how to measure out my portions using a food scale so that was a point scored for me on this journey. I had found a cheap but cute scale at Crate and Barrel last year but left it on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinet (Bad Cate!). So I drug it down last week and started to use it. I found that my portions per the scale weren’t nearly as bad as what I had thought by reading the package serving size. Like 2oz of pasta is quite a lot!
But 3 days of pasta was all I could take before turning in my flex points and doing our once a week eating out dinner - again at Buffalo Wild Wings. I just wasn’t feeling it so we skipped the wings and opted for a wrap, only had a couple of beers, and said no on dessert. So again not too horrible. But then again it did continue the downward spiral of no exercise for 3 days (Wed, Thurs, Fri) and then I ate out Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon but coupled it with some exercise so it wasn’t a complete loss. Mike and I also took our monthly Zoo trip to the Houston Zoo and had a nice brisk walk Sunday morning which I counted as extra exercise.
If you are looking for a change in your exercise routine I highly recommend going to local parks or the zoo early in the morning. We went at 9 am and the weather was just perfect with a fabulous breeze, sun wasn’t too hot yet, and there were not that many people. The only bad thing was that its pollen season and Mike and I didn’t last much longer than 1.5 hours but it was still nice for a change in scenery. I think we might do it again in 2 weeks after Mike’s CPA exam.
So all in all I had a .5 pound loss last week so I was still happy even though its small in comparison with my 2 pound losses. But as I learned in weight watchers a loss is a loss no matter how big or small. I’m on the right track so that’s all I can ask.
For this week: tuna helper helped and 2 pounds of chicken to figure out how to spice up. So stay tuned for a week 5 update to see what I did.
