well hello again!

Two months.  8 weeks.  56 days.  

That's how long it's been since I felt like blogging.  

That's how long it's been since I let myself slide off track.  

That's how long it's taken me to gain 4.8 pounds.  

That's how long it's been since I think I gave a damn.  

Well I'm giving a damn again.  

Not because of the new year's resolutions, because those things are junk and I know it.  

Not because the holidays are over, although I did manage to give myself free reign and it got ugly.  

Not because of anything anyone else said to me.  

I'm giving a damn again because I need to.  

I need to because I miss the way it felt to be getting in better shape.  

I need to because I miss the way people smiled at me when they hadn't seen me for a few months.  

I need to because I miss the way that old clothes became new again.  

I need to because I have invested quite a bit of money in a new bicycle, loads of new workout clothing, and some home exercise gear throughout 2012 and I cannot let that go to waste.  

I need to because I don't feel right without taking care of myself.  

I need to because I need to be in control of something, even if some days I can only control the amount of water I drink or that I ate fruit with every bite of a guilt laden snack option.  

I cannot wait for January 1st to come back and begin taking care of myself.  I especially cannot wait until my meetings resume on January 8th to start acting like a Weight Watcher again.  I cannot delay signing up for my beloved spin classes until after the supposed "New Year's Resolution" rush dies down.  

So I've made a few small changes, but I hope they have a large impact.  Here's where I'm starting:

1.  I logged in to the Weight Watchers main site and I changed my weigh in day to Friday.  

This was completely personal, and I'm not saying everyone has to do it.  I only did it because for the past 14 months I've had my weigh in day on Tuesday which means that I would fall into the following bad habit: I would track on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but on Friday and Saturday I would consume so much junk that I'd give up tracking on Sunday and Monday and just tell myself I'd start over on the following Tuesday.  This did not work well.  Let me rephrase that, this did not work at all.  

2.  I updated my Weight Watchers application on my phone.  

If you haven't done this yet, go do it.  Don't pass go, don't collect two hundred dollars.  Go update your app.  Now.  There are so many more features now on the program and I want to take advantage of every single one of them.  I want you to take advantage of it too!  The points program hasn't changed and neither have the good health guidelines, but the good people of WW have added a ton of new mental diversions and though process changing tools that I am really optimistic about.  I want to see if they work, because I know the points plus already does and anything on top of that is simply a bonus!  

3.  I logged on to my favorite spin studio's website and I signed up for 5 classes in the next three weeks.  

Back to the good old days.  I was cycling outdoors quite a bit over the summer and into the fall, but when the clocks changed and the weather got cooler I found excuse after excuse not to exercise outdoors anymore.  I've removed my excuse for the next three weeks because my beloved Pedal Spin studio is climate controlled and the rain doesn't change the ride at all.  After I signed up for the classes, I put them all on my calendar so I wouldn't have an excuse to forget...again.  

4.  I made sure that all of my exercise clothes are ready to go at a moment's notice in an easily accessible drawer.  

It sounds stupid, but because I'm putting my house back together after an unexpected and lengthy remodel (which I'll explain later, with pictures!) I had clothes all over my bedroom and in piles of disarray.  Just getting all of the necessary items in one place is going to help me, even just a teeny tiny bit.  Another small part of this equation is going to be getting the residual junk food out of my house, but I'm not going to try to tackle that all at once.  I find that getting rid of all the junk food makes me feel deprived, then I just rebel and eat like crap anyway.  It defeats the purpose.  

5.  Last, but not least, I'm back to my good old grocery shopping list.  

For a long time I had a routine of what foods I would buy and the good thing was that I got really comfortable with knowing the points plus values of my usual goodies.  The last couple of months have been a disaster of me grabbing whatever I could find at my local Target and eating junk food and fast food like it was the end of the world.  By adding my old grocery list to the knowledge that my beloved Trader Joe's has partnered with Weight Watchers to add over 1,000 of their food items into the Weight Watchers points plus database and I feel like I'm setting myself up for some baby steps back to success.  

So there you go, I'm going to coming around again.  I appreciate the "are you alive" emails, text messages, and tweets.  In fact, if you're not connected to me online somehow then I really hope you'll take a second to do so.  The easiest way is on Twitter, since I try to keep the health related stuff there.  I'm not shy though, feel free to get in touch with me in other ways such as Facebook.  I can always use another friendly person that is willing to share some accountability and support, and I hope I can provide the same to all you lovely people as well!  

"i can't get all the oil out of the tuna"

Every once in a while, something you over hear in a meeting room or read online hits you, and when it does it hits you HARD. 

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago in my meeting room.  We were discussing the upcoming Easter dinners and the struggles that we might encounter, and one of our beloved members, Stephanie, raised her hand with a comment. 

Back story on this woman: She's fabulous in every sense of the word.  She's honest.  She's a New Yorker, and she owns the accent (which I love).  She's funny.  She's open like a book.  I truly am grateful that she's in my meeting. 

So as we discussed all of the problems we might face (hard boiled eggs, chocolates, honey ham, etc), Stephanie pipes up with this amazing note.  She said, "When I joined Weight Watchers for the first time 40 years ago, we had to eat a lot of tuna on the plan and they didn't make water packed tuna, only oil packed.  One woman actually said in the meeting that she wasn't losing any weight because she couldn't squeeze all of the oil out of the tuna!"  

I sat there in sort of a stupor for a moment as I took this in, it didn't seem incredibly far fetched for me, but then Stephanie pointed out the obvious: It isn't one little thing like oil in our lives that prevents us from losing weight. 

BINGO! 

This is the absolute truth. 

It isn't Easter that prevents me from losing weight.  It isn't Christmas or Thanksgiving either!  Now I'm a mathematical person, so bear with me.  If you counted up all of the holidays and birthdays that my family and I celebrate, that means that we celebrate less than 5% of the total year. 

It is the other 95% of the time that is my downfall! 

Skinny people celebrate holidays.  Skinny people celebrate birthdays.  Skinny people indulge. 

But not all the time. 

It isn't necessarily the holidays or celebations that I need to watch out for, it's the rest of the time.  It's the lazy day when I grab pizza.  It's the night I skipped my workout to have some adult beverages with friends.  It's the day I said I'd have two beers, but I never outlined how big that they'd be. 

If I can cut down on those moments of weakness, I will become stronger in the long run. 

"do you mind sharing?"

At the end of each of our Weight Watchers meetings, we have our celebrations, as I'm sure you all do.  We celebrate our victories both on the scale and off, and my leader is pretty fantastic at making each of the "losers" feel like big winners. 

Scott asks by asking where the honoree is sitting, and follows up with them to make sure it's okay if he shares with everyone what victory we are celebrating today.  I've never heard a person turn Scott down.  I can't even imagine them saying, "No, don't tell everyone how great I'm doing."  It seems silly to me, but he asks us all nevertheless. 

After he shares their victory and we clap and congratulate them, he asks another question: "Do you mind sharing what is working for you?" 

Then the fumbling begins. 

The number one answer each week is TRACKING.  Then the room goes silent and we all nod our heads because we know it works and yet some of us still didn't do it that week. 

Other good answers are ACTIVITY or SUPPORT (a lot of people come in family or co-worker groups), but I feel like a lot of people just say whatever comes to mind at that moment, not really taking the time to think about what really has been working. 

When I had lost over 18 pounds, I realized that I had better start thinking about what I was going to say if Scott ever asked me that question.  You see, my next milestone was going to be a big one: when I saw that scale drop down a few more ounces, I will have lost over 20 pounds and 10% of my body weight.  That's right, I can say that I'm only 90% of the person that I used to be, but 100% improved! 

Then I panicked!  What was actually working for me?  Which aspect of the program was giving me the best results?  Well it wasn't just one thing, I think it was a combination a few things and I had to jot them down so that I'd remember just what they were when I was called upon to celebrate. 

The biggest weight loss aid for me is support.  This can come in many forms, and I've mentioned most of them before but I'll say it again.  My mom and I are Weight Watchers together.  I have a co-worker that is a Weight Watcher.  My boyfriend is very supportive of my choice to change my life.  And finally, Twitter Weight Watchers are incredibly important to my success.  There is an entire network of men and women out there that are Weight Watchers, Lifetime Members, and Weight Watchers Leaders and I rely heavily on their online support each and every single day.  I can talk to them about recipes, points bombs, new products, bad days, good workouts, good health guidelines, and more!  I am so grateful for these Twitter friends, and I'm sure I'll be talking about more and more of them on my blog. 

Next up in my journey was a new mentality I adopted back in December and I'm so glad that I did.  I adopted the mentality that I would try anything once to see if I liked it.  Since adopting this mentality I have had loads of success!  I have discovered things about myself that I would have never known had I shied away from them like I always did!  I tried a spin class and I loved it.  I tried using a heart rate monitor and I loved it.  I tried an alternative for peanut butter suggested to me and I loved it.  Don't get me wrong, there are things I've tried that didn't work for me (ahem, kale chips) but I'm not going to talk too much about them for fear that someone may avoid them because of what I said on my blog.  My advice, try everything one time.  Give it a shot.  At least I know now that my dog loves kale chips. 

Another mental adjustment that has worked for me is my mental reset button.  No, it's not a real thing.  It's just something I have to give myself permission to do so that I can keep on moving and not allow myself to be paralyzed by failure and fear.  Sometimes I have a bad weekend, and I get really upset with myself.  This leads to anger, anger leads to anxiety, and anxiety leads to things like stress eating or extra glasses of wine with dinner.  So here's what I do, I forgive myself for that bad breakfast, or the bad day, or the bad weekend that I may have had and I forget about it.  I don't let it turn into a bad week or a bad month.  I nip it in the butt, I wallow for a split second or maybe I just wallow for the thirty or so minutes I'm in my Weight Watchers meeting.  Then I get up and walk away from it.  Done and done. 

So there you have it.  Three things that work for me on this journey so far.  I know there are more, but these are the faithful friends that have kept me sane so far. 

Well that, and the numbers marching slowly down on the scale.