Talk About A Challenge!

So, my husband came to me this morning and asked what I thought of giving up, processed foods for 1 month.  At first, I thought he was crazy!  I always said that I could never be a clean eater.  I like my "convenience" foods to much.  After talking more about it, we've decided to try to avoid as much high-fructose corn syrup as possible, as well as artificial sweeteners, like aspertame. 

That seemed a little more do-able, especially after taking a look at ingredients for the dinners I'm planning on making for the next couple of weeks.  We are going live with this experiment on July 1st.  I think it's going to be easier for Kevin than it will be for me.  He's not going to have to give up a lot of stuff.  I'm going to have to give up diet soda, Diet Snapple, Clamato, and ketchup.  This will be no easy task for me. 

I think my biggest isssue will be the beverages.  I really can't exist on just water.  I hate drinking water.  I detest it.  And now, all of my alternative no-calorie drinks are off the menu.  Even Crystal Light powder.  I may have to resort to drinking sweet iced tea made with Splenda.  For those who know me pretty well would have thought that the ketchup would be the bigger issue.  Ironically, I actually like ketchup made with real sugar.  If it's good enough to eat in Jamaica, it's good enough to eat at home!  I am excited for the meal possibilities that are going to come out of this.  I told my husband that he's going to be doing a lot of grilling for dinner.  I'm really glad that I bought some skewers this spring. 

I'm hoping this will be good for the scale.  I lost 2.2 pounds after coming back from vacation, which was awesome, but this week hasn't been so hot.  I've been hungry, and for all the wrong things.  I also haven't been tracking like I should.  I get that tracking is the basic premise of Weight Watchers, but I've fallen off the bandwagon.  I did great last week, but I knew I had some ground to make up.  I don't know why I can't get my head into the game.  I really want to hit 20 pounds, and my 10%, which I'm very close to, but I just can't get the motivation to faithfully do what I know I need to do.  Maybe the new way of eating will give me the jumpstart I need.

A Successful Vacation

I am proud to report that vacation wasn't a complete disaster!  When I weighed myself after we got home, I had only gained 3.6 pounds.  I consider that a successful vacation.  When we went to Jamaica last year I gained 6 pounds!  I was kind of expecting that this year.

I was bad on vacation.  Well, let me define bad.  By bad, I mean that I didn't track anything that I ate.  I was somewhat concious of what I put into my mouth, but I wasn't overly concerned with it.  On the 2 day drive to DC, we ate a lot of snacks in the car...chips, Combo's, and beef jerkey were the staples.  I did have some tomatoes and light ranch too.  We also hit up White Castle on the way out because we can't get it here in KC.  It was good, but I decided that it's much better when you're drunk.  :) 

The night we got into DC we went to a seafood restaurant.  I figured that would be somewhat healthy.  I mean, seafood is low in points.  Well, when they brought the bread basket to the table it had your standard dinner rolls, but also a chopped up cinnamon roll.  Huh?  It was kind of cold so fortunately I was able to leave that alone.  We ordered the crab dip for 2 as an appetizer.  It was basically huge chunks of crab in a bath of cream cheese and parmesean, served with an entire french loaf.  We ran out of bread before we ran out of dip so I finished it off with a spoon.  It was a little self indulgent, yes, but very good.  For dinner, we split 2 entrees.  My husband got a shrimp po-boy sandwich.  It was really good and had spinach on it so I got a vegetable.  I ordered the crab casserole, which was crab in a cream and white wine sauce with cheese on top.  Very delicious.  The portion was small, especially since we split it, so that wasn't too bad.  For desert I had an italian ice that was under 100 calories. 

On Sunday and Monday we did a lot of walking.  I estimated that we did about 12 miles on Sunday alone.  I calculated that between the 2 days I earned 42 activity points.  Surely that took care of the junk that I ate in the car the 2 days prior.  We indulged in some chinese food, but made it last 2 nights, and had pretty sensible lunches.

Then we got to North Carolina.  The food was reasonable until Friday.  My sister-in-law is from Columbia, and her mom and aunt had come into town for my neice's graduation.  As soon as they got there they started cooking.  Everything was sooooo good, but I feel like all I did on Friday was eat...oh, and drink.  My brother-in-law found the caribbean beer that I like, so of course I had to indulge.  It was worth every bit of the points it cost me to drink it.  Oh, and there was a lot of regular Mountain Dew drinking.  Normally I drink diet.

Saturday and Sunday we were in the car again.  The snacks weren't quite as bad.  On Saturday we only ate breakfast and dinner, which wasn't too bad.  Sunday of course involved one last stop at White Castle.  This time we went in to order and I noticed that they had loaded fries.  That would be crinkle cut fries with bacon, cheese, and ranch dressing on top.  They were fantastic!

Considering all of this, 3.6 pounds isn't bad at all.  As of this morning I've lost all of that, plus another .4 pounds.  I will gladly take that.  I've been sticking to just my daily points this week in an attempt to actually have a loss at weigh-in on Saturday.  I'm also craving healthier foods, which helps.  Had I been diligent about tracking, I probably could have lost weight on vacation with all of the walking that we did.  Maybe I'll give that shot when we take our cruise next March. 

A Quick Vacation Update

So we have 3 days left on our vacation, and so far I don't think I've done too badly.  I haven't been able to get on a scale, but none of my shorts are fitting any tighter, so that's a good thing.  The first few days of vacation I ate like a pig, but at the same time I earned 42 activity points during our first 2 days in DC.  I think that negated most if not all of the extra food I've eaten.  I haven't been tracking my food because it's been a bit difficult, but I've been trying to only eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full, and chose healthier foods. 

The worst part has been the driving.  When I'm in the car, all I want to do is snack because I'm bored.  I think for the 2 day drive home I'll keep the snacks out of reach and pull out my book, or maybe just sleep!  I'm really curious to get on the scale when we get home to see where I'm at.  I don't think I've lost, but I'm almost positive that I haven't gained either, which is a good thing!

Unexpected Results

I got a bit of good news this week that we think is linked to my weight loss.  I had to go to the dentist Thursday morning.  I usually dread going to the dentist.  I seem to build up tarter really quickly so there is always a lot of scraping involved.  Well, when I sat down and opened my mouth yesterday morning, my hygienist was very suprised to see that I didn't have near as much build up as I normally do.  I haven't been taking care of my teeth any differently.  I told her that back in January I had joined Weight Watcher's and that my diet had changed.  Now I'm eating a lot more fruits and vegetables.  She said she's seen this happen before, and attributed my lack of tarter to my healthier diet. 

I was ecstatic! My entire appointment only took about half an hour, which I think is a new record for me in the dentist chair.  I really needed that non-scale victory, since this week has been mediocre at best.  I've been busy, and tired, and have just had a general lack of motivation. I haven't been tracking near as diligently as I should be, and that's reflecting on the scale.  What's done is done, and I'll have to face my fate on the scale tomorrow.  I'm determined to make next week a better week.  I need to have a better week next week so I have a good jump start heading into vacation.