Wow! Big loss this week.

And with minimal effort.  As said before, the only thing I can think of for me losing lately is most likely due to me no longer being on the Loestrin 24 birth control.  So thats 3 pounds down this past week.

The only reason I put the loss on the birth control is because I know even though I am eating less and have my restriction, I have made horrible eating choices this past week.  We got our income tax so we've been busy every evening with taking care of errands, bills and doing a little shopping.  Which lead to eating out.  Something we usually don't do.

The only good thing with that is I haven't overate.  No pain in my belly.  Nada.  And just been drinking my water, coffee and I did have some juice.  However, it was seriously 100% apple juice.  And I was told if I do get some juice I can only have the actual 100% kind.  But I haven't been over indulging.

In the meantime, its birthday party time for my two oldest.  If you don't know, all of my children's birthdays are basically in the month of January.  No, not done on purpose.  I just so happen to be fertile around March/April.  Haha.  We did a small family birthday for my 2 year old earlier in the month, so that the two oldest can enjoy doing Austin's Park & Pizza together today.  Its unlimited pizza and salad buffet, arcade, laser tag, go-carts, mini-golf, etc.  So fun times!  Can't wait to get this over with though.  I am tired.

Overall, this has been a good weekend.  With the extra money in, we've been able to do things for our house we haven't been able to do in over 5 years.  We got new bedding for all of the rooms, new pillows (wow, I didn't realize my old ones were that flat and used), curtains and rods, some decor for the kitchen.  Its made my home feel more homey.  Just love it!

Anywho...thats my update!

Feeling Good!

So I went to my friend's birthday bowling party.  It was awesome!  I got to see quite a few friends outside of friends we knew together and others of my own.  Me and Hubby bowled for 2 hours straight against each other.  I beat him about 4 out of the 5 games.  I also woke up super sore this morning.  All over.  Its been awhile since I've felt this sore from bowling.

So here's a photo of me and my friend Laura.  Seeing this photo lets me see that I have lost more weight than I originally thought.  On top of it, the top is a size XL from the juniors.  Hello!  I haven't wore that in a while.  So I guess that is one of my NSV's (non-scale victory).  Just learned that one.  After all this time.  I'm feeling great!  Then to see I'm at 211 as of this morning.  Its crazy that suddenly I'm losing weight.  The fact that I'm losing like this only makes me believe more that it was due to my birth control. 

Although I do have my moments of feeling sad about not having no more babies, I'm actually happy to not have to worry about birth control anymore.  Whoop whoop!  Get my dye test of the Essure procedure next week.  It better have taken or I'm gonna be one pissed off woman!  LOL.

Also, in other news is I can tell my size 18 jeans and work slacks are getting loose.  Can't wait to see size 16 baby!  Its happening....baby steps and seeing progress is definitely a great big motivator.

As for news on the Weight Watchers...heard we got 12 people signed up, including me.  Still need 3 more or we won't be able to do it.  Boooooo!   I hope that something happens because I want to do it at work!

Things are moving in the right direction.

Ya'll have no idea how excited I am to see my weight go past 213 lbs on the scale.  I'm so excited.  So it means it is possible to keep it moving down.  Haha.  At this point, I know I am eating less.  My water intake is higher.  Oh and I did stop taking my birth control.  I've been having some side effects from being on Loestrin 24 and I am just over it.  Having to deal with low sex drive and then issues each time I come to my inactive pills.  Then add the cost of having to see the doctor for those issues and medication EACH month.  I'm done!  Plus, I go in on February 1st to do my dye test to see if my Essure procedure (a form of permanent sterilization) took.  And we're not allowed to have sex until after I get it done.  Haha.  So the weight loss could be due to getting the extra hormones out of my system. 

In the meantime, I have signed up for the Weight Watchers at work program.  However, we have to have 15 members for the program to actually start.  Last I heard we only had 10 signed up.  So I'm kind of worried we won't have enough to start next week.  Just praying others sign up because I'm ready to get this started.  I guess if no one does sign up then I will probably go to another location and sign up.  It just makes it more convenient at work.  :(  We shall see come next Tuesday.

So tonight is one of my good friends birthday's.  We're going bowling.  She got the idea from me.  LOL.  I so love bowling though.  And I'ma whoop all their behinds!  I was talking to my husband and he loves it just as much as me.  We were in our work league last summer doing bowling.  I was thinking we could plan a bowling get together each month with friends.  Adults only.  Its really fun and we really ain't into the club thing.  Plus you can still drink a little if you want to.  I think I'll send invites to friends and friends of friends each month when we plan to do something via Facebook.

I also talked to another good friend, she wants to go rollerskating and so do I.  Not sure how many will get into this of my friends.  I think they all think their too old to do this........or afraid to bust their ass.  Haha.  Its been about 8 years since I last went but I don't care.  Great exercise and so much fun.  I'm going to plan this one though.  They have adult skating nights on Tuesdays...but its hard to get motivated to do this on a Tuesday.  Weekends are better...but then there's all these kids there.  LOL.  Decisions, decisions.

So thats it...........party tonight.  Can't wait! 

Weight Watchers?

So I've been debating on and off about starting Weight Watchers, along with this band journey.  I need something to hold me accountable.  Last year, around this time I was in this group with some online ladies and it was forcing me to be accountable for exercising and losing.  Right now, its just me.  I'm not doing too good alone.  I was reading an online friend's blog The Fit Bee and I have seen she's been doing Weight Watchers.  No band, just her working hard at exercising and changing eating habits.  She has done such a great job this past year in losing 71 lbs.

I hate to say it, the fact is I got this band........but no support with losing.  Its almost like I go into the doctor's office and either get a fill or don't and rushed back out.  Not good!  I also need the mental health assistance, along with some nutritional guidance.  I need help in changing the bad habits that brought me here.

So today was the day, there were two ladies in my job's cafeteria from Weight Watchers.  The job does it onsite, so no more excuses.  Just take a break from work and go to one of the conference rooms for a meeting and weigh-in.  Plus they bring all the information, products, etc from Weight Watchers...to us.  And we get free e-tools with the 14-week program.  I can also use my HSA account to pay for it and I think its like 168.00 for the program.  No more outs, this will help me stick with my goal too.  That I have yet to really get on...lol.

The info meeting is Wednesday, can't wait.  I'm ready!

No major changes this week.

Well no real updates this week.  I haven't done anything to put forth real effort this week on the weight loss part.  No gain or loss.  I'm good with the no gain part.  Lol.  But I think this 213 is my plateau weight and I have to do something drastic to break it and start losing again.  However, I know I really need to do something.....like exercise.  Ha!

I just don't have it in me right now.  This past week was horrible at work.  Are finances are all jacked up.  I do see we're slowly getting back to normal on finances but I'm still stressed because after almost getting caught up, we're still surviving off of like 100 bucks a week for food and gas.  Not good.  So that leaves me with no way of getting things in the area of food choices that I want to try.  I'm just sticking to staying under 1 cup and drinking primarily water through out the day.  That has definitely gotten better.  I do still drink my coffee and we have tea at home with dinner.  So I have made the drastic cut of juice.  I told my husband not to buy it or bring it in the house so then I don't drink it.

Outside of this update, there's really nothing going on.  Which I guess is weird, yet boring at the same time.  I feel so boring lately.  I went out with my best friend last night, literally had to be forced to go out by the husband but I'm glad he did.  I have this bad habit of telling friends when invited places, no.  And then I get upset later when we are never invited anywhere.  Thats something I need to change.  I don't know, maybe I'm feeling a bit down.  I had some moments last week and even now...where I'm really grumpy.  Or it could be that time of the month thing.  Since I'm on birth control pills until February and really not having a period, who knows when my real pms moments are.  But I could tell I was getting really irritable regarding things for no apparent reason.

I hope next week is better.  I may go down to the gym in our apartments, see if hubby wants to participate.  I think its open until 10pm.  We could get a work out in while the kids are in bed.  Random thought but it takes me typing these things to really think about things.  Haha.  Brain storming. 

Hoping for a much better week at work and in life next week!  :)

No Gain...thats the good thing.

So no gain but no loss.  I know I ate a lot of stuff this week I shouldn't have.  And every day I told myself, I'll fix it tomorrow.  Tomorrow never came.  LOL.  Bad habits, not eating breakfast...which turns into me starving by the next meal and overeating.  Not good.

I really need to fix this.  Its just when you feel like you have no money to buy the right foods, it makes you feel more in the dumps.  Lately, we've been doing a lot of catch up on bills so little money to cover the food cost.  Which leads to buying cheaper foods, which tend to be processed or not very nutritional foods.  I just keep telling myself only a few more weeks and things will get straightened out.  We'll get there. 

In the meantime, I'm searching for work out options.  I was thinking about buying a used treadmill, maybe on craigslist.  A friend suggested an elliptical.  But I think we're going to sign up with YMCA for the whole family.  My job reimburses 30 bucks a month for a gym membership, plus the whole family can use this.  Plus they have classes that I want to sign my daughter up for.  And I'm trying to get our family out of the routine of staying inside our house all the time. 

So...thats all that has been happening lately.

New Year! Better Me!

Well I did my weigh in today and I'm down another pound.  Its a  good way to end 2010, exactly at my lowest weight yet in this weight loss journey of mine.  I'm now at 213 lbs officially.  I'm so excited to see me finally hit onderland (aka below 200 lbs) and I can taste it.  So I'll be setting up some mini-goals because if you have none, then you won't do anything to change your ways.  No more beating myself up.  This journey has up's and down's.  Although I've had a lot of downs this past year, its time to move forward.  I know I did this surgery for a reason, to get healthy.

So I started about 2 weeks ago the change of what I'm putting in my body.  Since the nurse at True Results told me I can't have my cran-apple juice anymore (due to all the sugars and calories), she even suggested changing what I use for sugars.  I knew that I was drinking a lot of sugars and calories with liquids that has probably been one of the biggest culprits outside of no exercising.  My co-worker suggested this Organic Blue Agave.  I'm very particular about after tastes, thats why I really don't do the Splenda or other sweetners.  The nurse suggested Truvia or Stevia...same thing I guess.  I haven't tried those.  But my co-worker hooked me up with a bottle of the Blue Agave sweetner.  I actually like it.  I've been using it for my coffee and tea.  No aftertaste and I think its been helping with the issues that the lap band causes...(getting backed up for days). 

I also talked to another co-worker who got the lap band surgery in June of this past year.  Mainly about the whole measuring thing.  The point to me getting the band was to not feel like I'm on a diet but to help cut the portions down.  I know they want me to not eat over a cup for each meal.  She stated she doesn't use a measuring cup but what she does is use spoonfuls.  So she can have a taste of everything and not feel deprived.  I'm feeling that method.  Like  2 - 3 spoonfuls of each thing on my plate.  Then I should definitely stay under my 1 cup of food per meal.

Either way...one step at a time.  Thats really what helps make you change one bad habit to a good habit.  So that is my goal for 2011, to become a better me.  Moving to improving!