Gearing up for Holiday Chaos & The Skinny on Fiber

My Weight Watcher meeting leader has been having us pass in our *completed* trackers every week through the holiday season for a raffle. Along with continued blogging, that has really kept me on track with my nutritional and fitness goals throughout maintenance. Today I was looking at this weeks tracker and noticed that I've been filling up the page every day without going over my daily POINTS target as compared to the last two weeks when I might have only filled half a page.

Not only does it look good on paper, but I feel great. Snacking and having small meals more often has kept my hunger at an even keel and the constant tracking has spiked my vigilance to adhering to the good health guides and incorporating many filling foods. Many of the foods I eat are full of fiber, but are all those high-fiber products worth the extra dough?

This morning I was confused when trying to figure out the points in my coffee because I used Splenda with fiber along with 2 PONTS worth of creamer. I went on the internet in search of an answer and found that no, the sweetener with fiber does not reduce the point value of my coffee. The reasons for that answer have caused me to be hungry for more info.

Look back soon for "The Skinny on Fiber"

Weigh-In/goal change

This past week was week 3 of maintenance and I am doing just fine. I gained a bit last week, lost a couple this week. I'm trying to figure out my body and balance things out. Yet, as I wrote before, I am still not sure what my goal really is even though I have met the goal I set at Weight Watchers. I don't want to be too thin, yet I want to be lean and fit. I still feel I have a few pounds to lose, but definitely not many! Long story short...I have decided to move my goal to the 125-ish range. I am very short, only 5'1", and this is right in the middle of the healthy weight range listed for my height. I have lost all of this weight largely by making healthy food choices and with minimal exercise. Now it's time to become fit and be the healthiest me I can be.

Thanksgiving Battle Plan

This Thanksgiving I am going to:

1.) Eat off of a smaller plate

2.) Eat slooooowwwwllly- because I do have a tendency to inhale my food at an astonishing rate

3.) Drink lots of water

4.) Have a filling breakfast- oatmeal perhaps, with a sprinkling of pecans or walnuts for crunch

5.) Go wogging with my boyfriend and anyone else who'd like to join- currently we're looking at 53 degrees and partly cloudy :)

Activity plan B is to watch a Christmas movie while using using exercise equipment

Activity plan C is to sneak off and do a workout DVD

What I want and plan to eat/drink:

Turkey (white meat only, no skin)

Miracle Mashies (recipe here)

Stuffing

Lots of veggies

Berry Pie with splenda

Sangria (with cognac and fresh fruit)

Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without a second helping of dessert, so I plan to make some fat free, sugar free chocolate pudding to have with fat free reddi-whip (YUM)

Yellow light food: black olives. Every year I eat an entire can, but this year I will have a serving (or 2)

A failure to plan is a plan for failure

Trying to Maintain

Maintenance is as much of a battle as I thought it would be, maybe even bigger. These past couple of weeks I find myself constantly putting things mindlessly into my mouth with not so much as a second thought to whether or not I am hungry. Earlier this week I ended up devouring half a jar of salsa con queso...not the small jar, but the big one. That combined with the salt-covered tortilla chips at 3 points per ounce, was quite an expensive snack point-wise.

Not having a number-related goal has been difficult to get used to. I tried to set an activity goal instead, but I still have been unable to motivate myself to move. I am less active with each passing week and it's so frustrating because I want to be fit, I want to be truly healthy, and I want to keep this weight off, but I just can't seem to get off of the couch. I say everyday that things are going to change right now, but I always push it off until tomorrow, then the next day, and so it goes.

I can't stress how important it is for me to journal, if I did not write things down and hold myself accountable on paper for the things I eat, I would never have lost these 70 pounds. However, since making goal I notice that I'm saying more and more, "I'll write it down later", and I do, but I end up eating more points than anticipated.

On top of it all, this time of year is so hard for me. It was right after Thanksgiving that I lost my grandmother almost ten years ago at the peak of my anorexia/bulimia. It's hard to believe so much time has passed without her in my life. I miss her every day. She is the reason I am alive today. Before she passed away of pancreatic cancer she asked me to eat again and get better. She believed that I was meant to be around to touch peoples lives in a very special way, maybe it was the morphine talking... but here I am anyway, trying to be the healthiest person I can be. I am still working at it. I'm not perfect and never will be.

I think she said "Hi" to me the other day. I was accepting a delivery and randomly the truck-driver whom I had never met called me Miss Meg. I love it when that happens. In my darkest, coldest moments, it's like a ray of warm sunshine on my face.

Goal and New Goals

This Monday I made my Weight Watchers goal! In 42 weeks I went from 204 pounds and a size 15/16 to 134 pounds and a size 4 (5/6 juniors). BUT IT'S NOT ABOUT THE NUMBERS. This is the first time that I have ever lost weight the right way. Sure, I tried other fad diets, but I feel they always pushed me to some extreme and never taught me how to eat like a "normal" person. I had to try so hard not to cry at my meeting. Everyone was so supportive and happy for me. This journey has been and continues to be an emotional one. I've definitely come a loooong way in the last ten years.

I plan to continue on with the Weight Watchers plan and my goal is to be more active. Specifically, I would like to exercise for 15 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Believe it or not, that is more than my current level of activity. Once I achieve that, I would like to move to 20 minutes/3days. Then 20 minutes 5 days, in small steps, until I am exercising at least 30 minutes a day, 5-6 days a week.

I've even been having exercise dreams lately. Mostly I have dreams of running and they are completely unrealistic visions of me running effortlessly. So, this morning I went running because the sun was shining and I thought it would be a nice way to pass some time. I jogged for a grand total of 10 minutes (maybe even less) and thought my lungs were going to explode. I definitely need to do this in stages! For having lost all this weight, I'm honestly not all that fit, and in order to be successful long term I really should be.