Wednesday Weigh-In

I have been bad and I have been weighing myself every day. I'm going to try and resist the urge and only weight one time a week, probably Wednesdays. And then I'll do a video update once a month. Anyway, here's what the scale said this morning:

And if you noticed on my sidebar - MyFitnessPal says I'm down 6 lbs! In one week! Granted, this is mostly water weight, but it's also cause I'm aware of what I am eating and I'm tracking it and trying to make healthier choices. I know I'm not going to lose 6 lbs every week, and 1-2 lbs a week is probably more like it, but I hope I can continue on this path and reach my goal weight by either my birthday (June 30) or by when Grace starts 1st grade. Agh, she's going to be in first grade. Pray for me and wish me luck. I haven't had many cravings yet and I'm hoping to keep them all at bay.

Food Journal Days 5 & 6

I had to work all day yesterday because it was inventory day. I thought I'd cave at work and eat something like gelato or Grace's chicken tenders, but I was good! Taking snacks helps. And I tried to drink water if I thought about eating.

Here's my food journal from the previous day:

I did pretty good. I need to eat more before the very end of the night because I ate those almonds right before bed. Did the same things last night:

I seem to be getting a ton of protein, but considering I used to get basically no protein, I'm not going to complain.

Food Journal Day 4

Ugh, long, emotional work day. My boss is back from a month of medical leave and I'm so glad. It's been a long stressful month and I'm glad to go back to my own duties. But work was also long and I didn't remember to take a snack with me. And I didn't have a chance to eat anything until about 9:00 at night. Not the best plan, but I didn't snack on gelato so it's a win. I should have eaten more for lunch though and MFP yelled at me for it too.

I should have had a granola bar or something but I didn't. And I did sneak on the scale this morning too. Bad me. But I'm at 165!! Down 5 lbs since Wednesday! I just need to keep it up and keep drinking my water!!

Food Journal Day 3

Ugh, it was a rough day. Was at work by 8:00 to help set up the gelato machine for a Chamber event at the mall. Only down side to that is hauling everything in. It's HEAVY. I guess it's a workout and I didn't log anything for the day because I'm not really sure what it'd count as. Food-wise, work was ok. I wasn't hungry until right before I ate my lunch (at around 4:00) and I'm hooked on our BBQ chicken breast.

Dinner was my downfall. Mike made chicken & broccoli alfredo with garlic bread. I think I did ok with  the garlic bread because I only had 2 smaller-sized pieces. I should have stopped with the pasta after 1 plate, but I had another one and it was a little larger than the first plate. According to my food journal, it's like 1000 calories. Ugh. But the scale was still my friend today, and it's just one day. And I didn't snack on anything else after that.

Yikes! If every day was like yesterday then I'd be up in weight. Fortunately I don't have pasta every day. Honestly, I didn't think about how bad pasta actually is for you, especially when you add a creamy sauce.

Tonight I'm closing so BBQ chicken most likely, although maybe I'll do a cajun one instead. We'll see. And I have been having veggies with it, but I should do a salad instead. The family is having enchiladas. Mmmmm. Wish I wasn't working.

Food Journal Day 2

It was hard for a bit yesterday, but mostly that was from Midnight-1:00. I was at work late and I wanted to come home and have a bowl of cereal. But instead I went to bed. Only got 5 hours of sleep last night, but I'm hoping to make up for that tonight. Here's what I ate yesterday:

No snacks at all yesterday :( But no gelato samples either and we have PB chocolate out too. Also, I didn't consume any gluten, except for some Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce. I did go over my daily calorie allotment, but since the foods that I'm entering aren't necessarily those exact items that I ate, just something close that I could find. And since I'm relying on people to have entered correct numbers, I'm ok with going over by only 127 calories. And I drank ALL my water yesterday. I was in the bathroom a lot at work. Ha ha, someone might think I'm pregnant again.

I work from 8 to 8 today unless it's slow and I can leave early, but I doubt that's going to happen. So food choices are going to be hard. That BBQ chicken breast was great, and veggies are a good choice, but a salad with light dressing would probably be better. I need to take some snacks with me and make sure I don't cave to the gelato.

This says I should weigh 166 lbs in 5 weeks. HA! I weigh that now! I'm down 4 lbs. Probably all water weight, but a loss is a loss and I'll take it. Now no more weighing until Wednesday cause if it goes up tomorrow I'll be sad. Wish me luck for day 3!!

Food Journal Day 1

We'll see how well I do at actually keeping a food journal, let alone posting it.

This is yesterday. Hind site is 20-20 right? I'd have had a better lunch and less junky stuff at dinner, but that's what's cool about a diet. Today is a new day.  I also had some yellow fruit snacks cause Mercy hates the yellow ones. And a few Chocolate Frosted Flakes cause out of habit, I sneak one whenever I pour the kids some cereal. We also went on a walk yesterday to take a paper to Mike's truck. Probably about 30 minutes and I was pushing the stroller. Grace hopped on for a part of the ride, which gives me more resistance. I blame the walk on the ACE cause when I went over to get Grace from school, I had so much energy and I just wanted to move! We were going to go back over to school after dinner so she could run a lap and practice for the Wildcat Run, but she threw up after dinner so I said no running. She says it's cause she ate too much dinner. Who knows. We had burgers and she hates them, but ate most of one anyway so she may have made herself sick. 

This part of my food journal makes me smile. Mostly cause it says in 5 weeks I'll lose 4 lbs. I snuck on the scale this morning and was at 168.2 :) Down 2 lbs in 1 day. I know that's not super healthy, and it's probably mostly water weight, but it's also the ACE. 

AND I started reading "Wheat Belly" last night. I'm probably going to slowly start eliminating wheat from my diet. That's going to be hard, but hopefully I can read this book quickly and it can help me do it. 

Ok time to start the day. Kids are up and ready to get ready to go! Wish me luck on day 2!!

Losing the baby weight....Day 1

Bethany is 1 week away from being 9 months old. DAMN! How did that go so fast. That means a year and a half ago I got pregnant. I had a kidney stone blasted. I weighed 150 lbs which was still about 15 or so more than I wanted to weigh. Looking back at my NFP charts (yes I keep them, you never know when you want to look back at your old cycles) I was 168 lbs in February of 2011 (4 months postpartem with Mercy). Hell, let me just do it this way, if not just for my own records:

June 2009 - 140 lbs 
July 2009 - 149 lbs (wow, what a jump, but I did have a miscarriage that cycle so I probably ate to compensate and self-soothe)
Sept 2009 - 147 lbs
Oct 2009 - 149.6 lbs
Nov 2009 - 152.6 lbs
Dec 2009 - 154.4 lbs
Jan 2010 - 154.2 lbs
Feb 2010 - 148.8 lbs

And then I was pregnant with Mercy. I gained about 50 lbs that pregnancy, but went into labor weighing less than 200 lbs which was my goal. And she was a big baby (8 lbs 8 oz) so I used that as an excuse for gaining so much weight.

I started charting again in January 2011 at 72 days postpartem and my lovely period returned mid January. Hooray (not really)

January 2011 - 166.2 lbs
February 2011 -  168.2 lbs - Out of work cause Ruby's closed. Stressed? Yes.
March 2011 - 165 lbs - Started new job at Beehive
April 2011 - 162.8 lbs
May 2011 - 166 lbs
June 2011 - 166.4 lbs
July 2011 - 167 lbs
August 2011 - no weight recorded, also sucked up the temp charting.
September 2011 - 154.8! (I must have started A.C.E. but I don't remember exactly when I started it)
October 2011 - 150.4 lbs! (Back to pre-pregnancy weight before Mercy)
November 2011 - 149.8 lbs - And then I got pregnant with Bethany....tee hee

Ok so I would not change a thing with my life, especially our little blessing of Bethany. She's such a joy and such a pleasant baby. And she makes me smile every day. But the timing of my pregnancy was not particularly planned. At first I said God has a sense of humor. Really, he knew we needed her in our lives. Granted, 3 kids is tough, and Mike and I are both tired all the time but like I said, I wouldn't change a thing. I was made to be a mom and I'm so very, very blessed to have these three amazing and beautiful girls in my life. My weight loss journey is as much for them as it is for me. I don't want to be an overweight mom that doesn't want to go swimming with them because I don't want to be in a suit. Or a mom that's too tired to play because I'm out of shape. And I want to instill healthy eating habits for them and not my addiction to sugar. Which I am 100% sure I am addicted to. Sometimes I eat just to eat and I'm sick of eating because I'm bored. And I do that.

I lost a lot of weight after I had Grace by following the Weight Watchers plan. I was not a member. I just knew the system. I had the calculator, I charted my food, I ate sensibly. I went from 172 lbs to 135 lbs. I looked and felt great. Then I stopped using the system and I gained a lot back. Then pregnancy after pregnancy. You know the rest.

I could try WW again, but honestly I don't think it'll work this time because of things I have decided to give up, i.e. aspartame. When I was on WW, I ate a lot of prepared foods. They were easy to calculate points. Plus, they changed the system and I'm too lazy to figure it out.

About a year and a half ago, I tried A.C.E - Appetite Control & Energy. First time I took it I freaked out. I took 2 pills. I mowed my lawn and felt like I had run a marathon. I didn't like how I felt, so I stopped. Then I decided to try it again and I lost almost 20 lbs in a few months. I would have kept going by God decided it was time for Bethany, so I stopped.

As of right now, I'm no longer nursing (thanks to 8 teeth in my 8 month old. Really??? Yes) I'm ready to lose this baby weight and I just need some help. I am reading "Wheat Belly" and I'll probably eliminate gluten from my diet. I'm trying to kick the sugar habit, but that morning cup of coffee is going to be hard to get rid of and I like it sweet. ACE is there to jump start my energy and suppress my appetite so I don't reach for a snack when I'm bored. I'm also trying to read 100 books this year, and I'm only down 27 so I have some stuff to read.

Ok, back to my weight chart cause I just found this year's charts -

September 2012 - 177 lbs - 8 weeks post partem with Bethany
November 2012 - 176.2 lbs - period back again. Damn
December 2012 - 176 lbs
January 2013 - 173 lbs
February 2013 - 172.8 lbs
March 2013 - 168.6 lbs
April 2013 - 168 lbs and today
170.4 lbs.

As you can see, in 7 months I've only lost 7 lbs. I have been nursing so I couldn't really diet in the typical sense, and I don't work out. I hate it.

Wow this post is rambling. Moral of this post - I'm back on ACE and I want to hit my goal of 135. Well, between 130-140. I'm only 5'3" so 170 is way too big. I'm sick of the muffin top on my pants. I'm sick of size 14 pants. I'm sick of not liking my clothes. I'm sick of looking like I'm pregnant again. I'm going to try and keep track of what I eat every day. I'm going to weigh in on Wednesdays. I'm going to drink lots and lots of water and I'm going to gain my self esteem back. I know it's just a number, but I wanna feel good about myself when I look in the mirror. And I'm actually going to post this video I took this morning that shows my post-baby belly. I'm nuts. Pray for me! Cheer me on! Follow me on this journey.

March 2008 - I was about 135 lbs

October 2011 - 150 lbs