Even small successes deserve a celebration

Tuesday is Weigh-In Day. After last week's weigh-in I was a little nervous stepping on the scale today but all my hard work paid off. I lost 1.1pound of the 5 I had gained back. I am proud of the loss simply because its a loss.

What I am most proud of is the fact that I was on the treadmill several times this past week. I earned a total of 15 activity points. Considering I was averaging about 2 or 3 activity points a week... 15 is a pretty good success. We bought a new treadmill on Saturday, and I bought new running shoes on Sunday so I have been super excited about getting on the treadmill. The new one seems to work me harder but is so much easier on my knees and back. The old treadmill was several years old and after about 15 minutes my knees would hurt and my back would be killing me. This new treadmill has a smoother and more cushioned tread so I am able to go longer, faster, and harder without the extra pain. OK, this may sound gross, but I find that I sweat a LOT more when I am walking on the new treadmill. I guess that means I am working harder, but I don't feel like I am working harder. Oh well, all I know is I am loving the treadmill and the shoes :-) Did I mention how much I love my new treadmill??

The one thing I really need to figure out, and if anyone has any suggestions please post them, the best time for me to do my walk/run. I am not a morning person so first thing in the morning is not the best suggestion. I have tried getting up earlier and it is just SOOOOO hard. I know I know, I could just suck it up and do it, but I figure if I am that averse to getting up, then I am not going to want to get up AND get on the treadmill. Anyway... my normal routine is that I get home from work, make dinner, eat dinner, then after dinner I change into my walking clothes and get on the treadmill. Now this is causing me to have some "tummy trouble." but if I wait until my dinner digests then I am tired and not interested in walking. So my dilemma is when I should walk. I guess I need to figure things out so that I can get into a routine and stick with it.

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

New Name, a Super Success and Wake Up Call

First off, let me say that it is 6:30am on a Saturday and I am awake, this is not usual. Why am I awake? Because my husband, who is a morning person through and through, is up and running on the the treadmill in the living room right outside our bedroom door. Now this wouldn't be so bad if our treadmill wasn't old as the hills and sounding like it was ready to fall apart at any minute.

 I decided that I wanted to change the name of my blog because it was becoming more of a place where I can reflect on setbacks as well as celebrate successes so I think the new name fits my purpose a little better. We also have a new URL so if you have this blog in your favorites you will need to update your favorites to reflect the new URL http://successesandsetbacks.blogspot.com/

On to the good stuff! Hubby and I got our tax refund yesterday and I actually followed through on exactly what we planned to do with it! It was so tempting having that money sitting there staring at me and my mind did go in a bunch of different directions and to all the things we "needed" but I did what I said. I put the exactly what I planned into savings, and then I paid off SIX credit cards!! Then I called and closed them all! It feels SO great. We now have an extra $240 a month to put towards paying off the next credit card (yeah we had/have WAY too many) but with the Debt Snowball we are really starting to see some progress. We had been paying out almost $800 a month in credit card payments, we are now down to around $650. Still way too much but its getting smaller and as long as we keep moving forward with this plan we will soon have them all paid off and will be able to put that $800 a month toward savings and paying off our cars so we can be truly debt free.

I wish I was reporting that I had lost the 2 pounds that I gained last week but not yet. Tuesday is weigh-in day and I am optimistic that I will be moving DOWN instead of up. It was an eye opener for me this week. When I gained those 2 pounds it shook me because it was the biggest gain since going on maintenance. On my WW e-tools I have a progress report that shows me all my weigh-ins basically since I started the program. After last week's gain I started to think "Oh its no big deal its only 2 pounds, its probably just water weight, maybe I'm bloated" but then I went in to look at my progress report, I mean really look at it and there it was staring my in the face. It said on the last column "Total amount of weight loss since beginning - 20.2lbs" I stared at it for a few minutes and then I started to get upset because about a month ago I had earned my 25 lb Star meaning I had lost 25 pounds since I started the program (I had lost 10 pounds on my own before starting the program). Now it was showing that I had lost 20 pounds. That means I had not just gained those 2 pounds in 1 week, but that over the course of the last several weeks I had gained FIVE pounds. I went back to look at my last several weigh-ins and sure enough there they were. Not all together of course, a 0.8 lb gain one week, a 0.2 loss the next, 0.6 GAIN the following week etc. They were all little gains mixed in with even littler losses, which is probably why I didn't pay much attention to them but those little gains add up to some big stuff and THAT is how people end up putting back on the weight they lost - a little bit at a time. My 2 pound gain was my wake up call. I need to really be careful because if I do not use everything I have learned from WW about how to eat healthy and how to BE healthy I will end up right back where I started and that is not a place I want to be. So I am back to tracking those points EVERY day EVERY thing I put in my mouth gets tracked. I am back to walking too, and I still do the yoga routines on the Wii but I am walking more. My husband is being my inspiration. He is not at goal yet, he's only about 10 pounds away from his goal but he is on the treadmill 6 days a week. I am so proud of him. I need to quit making excuses, my back hurts, I'm tired from teaching all day, I walked yesterday, I took a shower this morning and if I walk I'll have to take another one and if I wash my hair twice in one day it will dry out (yes I have actually used that excuse on multiple occasions) Anyway I am done with excuses and ready to get back on track. Well I guess its time I get out of bed and off the computer and get ready to start my day. I think the first thing we will do today is go to Sports Authority and see if they have a nice quiet treadmill on sale or clearance.

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

Not a Happy Weigh In

I am so mad at myself right now. I am disappointed in myself as well.

This past weekend my honey and I went on an impromptu weekend getaway to Savannah, GA and St. Augustine, FL. It was an amazing weekend with just the two of us. Since our kids are all adults now we finally are having some time to ourselves. We never had that before because when we got married I already had my 2 oldest children from my first marriage. We were an instant family and even when we were dating most of our dates were "family" dates; trips to the zoo, kid movies, carnivals, etc. After we were married my husband adopted my children so we literally were an instant family. The funny thing is the two oldest children's adoption was finalized the same week that our son was born. So we were in the courtroom with our 5 day old baby boy, our 2 year old son, and 5 year old daughter, after the judge granted my husband the adoption of my children he asked my husband how old the baby was, my husband responded that the baby was 5 days old. The judge shook his head and chuckled and he said to my husband "Mr. Foreman, the Office of Vital Statistics is going to think you have been one busy man, 3 new kids in one week" It is kind of cool that all 3 of their birth certificates were all filed the same week. Anyway, coming back from my ADD trip, so the hubs and I have never had a time in our marriage where it was just us, no kids. Now that the kids are 18, 21, and almost 24 we are finally getting that time.

Anyway, I am coming up on my one year anniversary with Weight Watchers which means I have been in Maintenance now since I reached my goal weight on October 11th, 2011 (almost 7 months after I began the program) I have been doing a fairly good job of maintaining my weight and would fluctuate between 133 - 134 pounds (which I am SO proud of). Well I am angry and disappointed because while we were away for our weekend I did NOT make healthy choices for eating. I ate fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, pancakes, etc. I didn't even bother to track. I ended up gaining 2 pounds! I am so angry at myself for being so stupid and not even trying to to avoid the temptation of all those fried and fatty foods. I am better than that, I owe it to myself to be better than that.

Obviously I am NOT happy about a 2 pound gain this week. That is just unacceptable and I have to make sure that I get rid of those 2 pounds ASAP or they could turn into 4, 6 or 8 pounds. Once you slip you have to catch yourself quickly and get back on the right track. So I have been tracking everything I eat. The other night I ate a snack (can't even remember what it was so I am sure it was really yummy - NOT) and I thought "I'm not going to bother to track this" and then I said to myself "Just because you don't track it doesn't mean you didn't eat it." and I ended up tracking it after all.

I guess maybe the 2 pound gain has been a bit of a reality check for me. I had been slacking a lot in tracking and in my exercising. NOT ANYMORE! I have been tracking everything I put in my mouth. AND I have started exercising again each day. Because I have been lazy for the last several weeks I have started off a little slow. I do 30 minutes on the treadmill 6 days a week, and every other day I also do a 35 minute yoga routine on my Wii Fit. I am really enjoying the yoga maybe I can find a class to go to once or twice a week.

Along with the 2 pound gain I had a scare this week as well. On Sunday night I started getting some really sharp pains in my left shoulder, then it started radiating across my back and  down my left arm. My first thought was "Oh my gosh, there is something wrong with my heart" and I started thinking about all the fatty fried foods I had eaten over the weekend, and I also started thinking about my mom. I lost my mom when I was 23 years old, she was only 54 years old, and she died from congestive heart failure, brought on by heart disease. My mom battled her weight for as long as I could remember. She tried every possible diet or program out there. They all worked until she stopped doing them, of course, and then she would gain the weight back and then some. I think that my mom could have been the poster child for why diets don't work. Which is the biggest reason I like WW, it isn't a diet, it teaches you a new lifestyle. On top of my mother dying at a young age from heart disease I have a grandfather, an aunt, and an uncle who all died of massive heart attacks also at fairly young ages. So of course when I get this strange sudden pain in my left shoulder, I began to freak out slightly. So on Tuesday I went to the doctor and, to my relief, he diagnosed it as muscle spasms and he gave me Naproxin and a muscle relaxer which have been of tremendous help.

While at the doctor, because of my family history, he did an EKG just to be on the safe side. When he came back he said to me that my EKG looked great and he said "It looks like the EKG of someone who exercises" I immediately started thinking that I hadn't been exercising recently but that I had better get my lazy butt off the couch or out of the computer chair and back on the treadmill and yoga mat. It was the first real confirmation for me that this new lifestyle was not just making me look good on the outside but also making me "look" good on the inside as well. I've NEVER had anyone say to me "Wow you look like you exercise" and to be honest, I think that I felt WAY better when my doctor said that my EKG looked like I exercise than I would if someone said it about my body. Strange? Maybe, but with a family history like mine I want the "hot looking" EKG more than the hot looking body. Actually, I want BOTH!!!

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

Loving my Wii Fit!!

One of my biggest downfalls/setbacks is my motivation to workout and exercise. I get bored so easy and then I lose interest. We have a treadmill that my husband uses several times a week and at first I was using it too but as I mentioned, I get BORED BORED BORED. I need my workouts to be fun and to go by quickly without me realizing the time LOL yeah I know I'm like a kid LOL Anyway a while back we bought a Wii Fit and I used it a couple times but really thought it was more for my kids than me. Then a couple days ago I read a blog post (I can't remember who it was) talking about how she used game on her Wii Fit to spice up her workout and I started to think about my Wii in a whole new light. So tonight I pulled out the balance board and the Wii Fit Plus disc and actually turned them on.

I have always wanted to go to a yoga class but I am still very self conscious so I always chicken out. Well I I designed my own 20 minute Yoga class, I figured that would be a good start, and then my son and I spent about hour playing the balance games. When I put it all into my WW activity tracker It came out the 3 activity points. Not a ton of points but hey, it's 3 more than I would have had if I hadn't played some games with my son. I had fun and I burned some calories, isn't that what a workout is for? If I had made myself walk on the treadmill for 45 minutes I would have earned those same 3 activity points but this way I earned them and enjoyed it! That's the biggest difference AND I am looking forward to doing it again tomorrow! That hasn't been the case for the treadmill in several months now LOL. I may actually even be able to get a good night sleep tonight. If I am sore tomorrow I will know it was a great way to workout. I LOVE the Yoga and can't wait to do it again!

On a related note, we will be getting an xBox Kinect in the next month or so and I want to try to find some fun workout type games for that as well. I think Zumba with the Kinect would be a LOT of fun! I have to figure out how to keep both my Wii and the new Kinect hooked up to the TV so I can play them both LOL Oh Oh, I may be turning into one of those video game geeks, oh well, if I do I will be one hot geek LOL

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

I'm a Recipe Maker!!

I can't believe it!! I actually created my very own recipe! Well sort of, I tweaked a recipe from Emily Bites. I absolutely love her banana, chocolate chip, oatmeal muffins (as does my whole family)! Well my husband  is a big fan of apple cinnamon oatmeal and I thought that it would be super yummy for him if I could make him some apple cinnamon oatmeal muffins, so I played around with Emily's recipe and viola I came up with an apple cinnamon oatmeal muffin that my hubby loves and it is healthy and Weight Watcher's friendly!



Ingredients:
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup (2 packages) of Apple Cinnamon instant oatmeal 
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon sugar 2 egg whites
1 egg
1 cup fat free milk
1/4 cup of apple juice 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 small red apple, peeled, cored, and diced
Directions:
1.    Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly mist 12 or 18 cups in a muffin tin with cooking spray.
2.    Combine the dry ingredients n a large bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed (I use my hands to break apart all the brown sugar lumps). 
3.    In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (NOT the apples). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until blended together. Fold in the apple pieces.
4.    Spoon the oatmeal mixture evenly between the prepared muffin cups (I use an ice cream scoop). Bake uncovered for 22 - 25 minutes or until oatmeal is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

18 oatmeal singles. Weight Watchers Points plus = 3 per muffin 
12 oatmeal singles Weight Watchers Points Plus = 4 per muffin


*Points Plus calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

Another setback but a really great day!

Well the jar system is not working as well as I thought, it is really frustrating and stressful actually. It seems like no matter when I try to do something like this everything that can go "wrong" does. My older son ended up needing to go to the doctor and get a prescription, which is all part of the monthly budget but since the budget is broken into weekly amounts now it immediately threw me over budget for the week which meant I had to pull money from other areas which would then put me over budget again. Then my youngest son came to me and asked me if he could have money to go to a concert and since he rarely asks for anything like that I can't say no. He's a great kid and doesn't ask for much so of course I'm going to do what I can to give him the money for the concert. So I have just decided to adjust my monthly budget and continue to go from there. Its a system I have been using successfully so I'm OK with that. I'm not sure why I thought it needed to be changed. 

I do have to say that  had a really great day today! My daughter lives 2 hours away and I don't get to see her very often. Even when she moved out to go to college she lived just around the corner. She and I have always been very close and when she lived close by we would go to lunch together and go shopping. about a year ago she moved 2 hours south of me and now I only get to see her every once in a while and that's usually on birthdays and holidays. We never get to just go have lunch and go shopping. My husband and I like to go for drives and today we decided to go for a drive to an outlet mall about and hour away from our house. On the way there I was texting with my daughter and told her where we were going and she said she said that her and her boyfriend had some shopping to do to and that they could meet us at the mall! I was so excited to get to have a day of shopping with my baby girl! We had lunch and then we spent all day at the outlet mall shopping and talking and just having a great time. I was SO proud of myself too because we went into the Dooney and Bourke outlet store AND the Coach outlet store and I didn't buy anything at either of those stores! I did buy a few kitchen gadgets (like $16), a comfy pair of jammies from Jocky for $30, and some slippers from Easy Spirit for only $9!! I felt really good that I resisted the temptation of my biggest weakness - PURSES!! The best part of the whole day was just shopping with my baby girl. Se is so grown up now, she is 23 years old and has her own house now. It was really cool to watch her and her boyfriend discussing decor for their home. :-)

Anyway, even though my jar system didn't pan out the way I had hoped, and actually caused me more stress LOL, all in all today has been a great day! 

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

I am testing this out. Trying to post to my blog via text message

Blogs and Jars

I have spent the last couple days looking for Weight Watcher related blogs and I am so excited with the ones I have found. I have to say my favorite so far is called Emily Bites she has a ton of awesome easy Weight Watcher's friendly recipes! It is a true treasure for someone who is working hard to maintain. I am so thankful that God seems to have answered my prayer to unsettle me. I have found myself getting back into many of the habits I started when I started Weight Watchers. I actually had 4 servings of water today and only 2 Coke Zero's. I haven't gone over my Points in a several days and I had been going over several times a week. 

As far as finances go we are beginning the "jar system" next week. We have broken our monthly budget down into a weekly budget. I have taken 5 jars and labeled them with the main things we spend money on, transportation, food, entertainment, clothing, and everything else. I also included the weekly budget amount for each category. My husband and I will place receipts or notes into the appropriate jars and at the end of each day we will tally up the total that was spent in that category and make a note of what's left for that category. When/If the budget limit has been reached for that category we will flip the jar over to remind us that there is no more money for that category. If we have to go over for an "emergency" for say... needed groceries, then we would have to take the money out of one of the other areas. I am hoping this will really help us keep track of our weekly spending. I got this idea from the show "Till Debt Do We Part" and thought it would be a great way to really keep track. I'll post how its working once we get it up and running. 

Cindy 

~~Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil~~

Unsettled

Well if you have followed my recent blog posts then you have probably figured out that I am a Christian and I am a very spiritual person. That being said I turn to God quite often when I am experiencing difficulties. I decided that this year I wanted to have a closer relationship with Jesus and so I began to search for a way to connect every day through a daily devotional. I was seeking a daily devotional that would speak to me. I had downloaded samples of several different ones onto my Kindle and none of them "fit" so I did what I do and I prayed "God, please lead me to the devotional that has what I need and that has the messages You want me to receive over the next year" and then I started looking some more and I found some pretty good ones. Then I came across one titled "Made to Crave Devotional" by Lysa TerKeurst, and it caught my attention. I downloaded a sample and began reading it. Come to find out it is a devotional for women who are on the healthy eating/weight loss journey.

I read the first devotional last night and it was titled "Unsettle Me" and after reading this I realized that this is what I need! I have settled in to my new size, my new healthier lifestyle, and my constant debt. I have found then when things "settle" we tend to begin to slip back into our old ways and that is exactly what was happening to me.  I realized that in order to move forward I needed to be "unsettled" I needed to go back to when I was unsettled and was beginning my weight loss journey and beginning my "money makeover." So I prayed for God to unsettle me and to help me keep moving forward. I'm not going to say that some miracle happened or that the heavens opened and all the answers were revealed to me LOL of course not, that's not how God works. I have to lean on Him when it is time to make decisions about what to eat or how to spend money. I have to be unsettled, I have to keep from settling in until I know I am ready to settle in to the right routines and choices.

~~God Bless~~

Small setback with a touch of success

Well, after being off school for 2 weeks and sleeping in until like 9:00, 10:00, and even 11:00 on a couple of the days I was slightly out of my mind when I thought I could start off by waking up at 5:30 in the morning. I had high hopes and even had my alarm set for 5:30, but when I woke up around 3:30am I knew there was no way I was gonna carry myself out of bed and on to the treadmill in 2 hours. SO instead of 7:00 I reset my alarm for 6:30 which I did honor, when it went off I only hit the snooze button once LOL. I figure I'm using baby steps to get us out of debt and build up our savings account I should use baby steps to becoming a morning person as well. I didn't get to get on the treadmill but I did get my devotional done. I should be on the treadmill right now, but instead I'm busy blogging and thinking about making a bag of caramel popcorn. LOL.

I did have a couple of  small successes with controlling my spending over the last couple days. As I said I have been on vacation for 2 weeks and today was the first day back to work and I was/am completely exhausted. I had to stop at the grocery store on my home from work. Now right next to the grocery store is a Subway and a Chinese take out place. Normally I would have just picked up dinner at one of those places and justified the spending in my head somehow but instead I went right past them and made a yummy Stuffed Pepper Soup for dinner. It was perfect for such a cold night (29 degrees here in Florida!!) and I had everything here at my house to make it.

My other financial success was I discovered an auction website called Listia (http://www.listia.com/signup/1037727). I have always been a big eBay fan and have bought and sold on eBay for a long time now but eBay charges a fee to list items for sale and if you win an auction, of course, you have to pay for the item. Well I discovered Listia through a friend and it is a place where you can list things to give away and then other people bid on the auction with credits (not money) and then at the end of the auction the highest bidder gets the item and you get the credits, which you can then turn around and use to "buy" stuff you want. the best part is a LOT of the sellers offer free shipping so the items are really free! I have listed some of my old clothes, shoes, and purses and have gotten quite a few credits which I then used to get myself some new-to-me clothes. It is an awesome system and it is totally free (unless you win an auction that requires you to pay shipping) This is a great alternative to shopping on eBay and it doesn't cost me anything!! I've gotten several  shirts, jeans, and dresses all for free!

Trying something new

First off I am so excited to say I AM GETTING A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW!! Last night, at midnight, my oldest son proposed to his girlfriend and she said YES!!! My baby boy is getting married, it just doesn't seem real!!

OK, onward...

I am not usually a morning person, which means on work days I usually get up at 7:00 to be at work by 8:00. Sometimes I push it and sleep until 7:15. Fortunately I teach at a school that's only about 5 minutes from my house. Well since I sleep until 7:00ish I am rushed in the morning, I have to get ready for work and eat quickly. I have no time for anything else. Then by the time I get home from work I am tired from teaching all day and I don't want to get on the treadmill, I barely want to cook dinner. Soooooo I am going to try to change that, starting on Tuesday I am going to work really hard to get up earlier so that I have time to eat a good breakfast, maybe do a 30 minute walk or run on the treadmill, and even have time to do a quick morning devotion. I think that this will make my day a lot less stressful. So my plan is to wake up at 5:30, eat a nice breakfast while doing my morning devotional, then a 30 minute walk on the treadmill. That puts me finishing everything by around 6:30 which means I have PLENTY of time to get ready for work. I think it will be a good way to start my day each morning but I know I am going to be SO tempted to not do it and to go back to sleeping until 7:00ish so I have to work really hard to do this. I will be sure to post Tuesday afternoon/evening about how well I do on Tuesday morning.