Stand Up Sunday - Week 7

(I'm sorry for the bad formatting today. It is Saturday night and I've slept 1.5 hours in the last 24, so I'm too tired to figure out how to fix it! I'll update the weight in the morning!)

1.      How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I started the week at 158.6lbs. I ended at __________. A total loss/gain of ______.

2.      How many inches did you gain or lose?

I still haven’t measured myself… so nothing to add here!

3.      Your weekly exercise or step goal, and did you meet it?

I forgot my Fit Bit at home on Monday (I didn’t put it back on after my shower) so my steps are bad for that day. Then on Thursday I went out after work so I didn’t end up getting to my 10k steps. However I stuck to it the rest of the week.

4.      What was your biggest challenge this week?

The question is really what WASN’T a challenge. Once again the weekends mess me up. I end up eating things I shouldn’t and I don’t count the calories because they are not an easy to count (like pasta, I ate some noodles and I didn’t measure it out). I want to say I will be better this weekend (I’m writing this on Friday) but I have a an all-day thing I’m doing on Saturday and I don’t have a choice as to what I’m eating and on Sunday I have a baby shower.

5.      What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

I discovered the Very Berry Hibiscus. I don’t know how healthy it is, but it’s not that high in calories (100 for a Venti) and it is delicious. I’ve been snacking on that this week.

6.      Do you have any advice or tips for the rest of us?

I cannot come up with anything this week because I haven’t been following any of my advise lately.

Stand Up Sunday - Week 5

1.      How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I started the week at 158lbs. I ended at 158.8lbs. A total gain of .8 ounces.

2.      How many inches did you gain or lose?

I still haven’t measured myself… so nothing to add here!

3.      Your weekly exercise or step goal, and did you meet it?

I bought a FitBit Charge Sunday night and have reached 10,000 steps every day since, so definitely an increase of steps from last week. I hope that the FitBit keeps inspiring me to get out there and get to my goal daily.

I walked a total of 76,376 steps. (I got Sunday's steps from my Samsung app, but the rest were from the FitBit)

4.      What was your biggest challenge this week?

Wings. Have you guys had Buffalo Wild Wings? They are delicious. You can order wings and have them put whatever flavor you want on them. They have a vast array from not spicy to extremely spicy. They have one that tastes like a Christmas Tree. They are amazing. They had MAPLE flavored ones as a special this week. I went to lunch there on Tuesday with my supervisor. On Tuesdays the wings are 69 cents each. $10 for lunch and leftovers! So I had them for lunch 2 days in a row. Each wing is about 90 calories. I still stayed under my calorie goal because of all the walking, but NOT eating them would’ve been better.

5.      What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

I bought some plums this week. They are not quite ripe yet, but at about 30-40 calories each, they are a good snack. Last summer peaches were super cheap (.49/lb) so I ate peaches ALL the time. Finally I got tired of them, but it was about 3 or 4 months of only peaches (and sometimes pears mixed in).

6.      Do you have any advice or tips for the rest of us?

Try fresh fruit! It’s delicious and most of the time available year round at the supermarket (or is that just here in CA?) and farmer’s markets. Most of the time they are low in calorie (watch out for bananas, avocados, grapefruit, and apples) and delicious!

Weight Loss... Again!

Here we go again. You’ve read this type of post a hundred times on a dozen or more different blogs.

I need to lose weight. Over the past year I’ve gained about 16-20lbs. I’m not happy.

I’m happy at about 145 to 150lbs.

But I can’t seem to stay on track when it comes to losing the weight. This isn’t my first time around the weight loss wagon. I weighed as much as 196lbs at one point, so I’m still down, but I’m not where I want to be.

I’ve been thinking about what made me successful 3 years ago when I lost the 30lbs. I was working as a receptionist and while we were ordering food all the time, I still somehow got the weight off. I had joined MyFitness Pal and was posting/reading regularly on Reddit’s –LoseIt section. I’ve attempted to get back into doing both these things but I somehow have been unable to stick to either.

Of course my life is different now than then. Back then I had just started dating Thomas. Now I’ve been married to him for half a year (wow!). I’m also at a different job where I sit in front of the computer all day which just makes me want to snack on things.

Something I’ve been doing lately is making excuses. A lot of them. Finding all the reasons why I can’t lose weight and not any of the ways that I can.

So today I remembered something else I did at my previous job that probably helped me with the weight loss. I drank tea. 2 or 3 cups a day. It made me feel full and it was tasty. It fulfilled the need to bring something to my face without adding unnecessary calories.  (I do add Splenda to some of the teas, but not much and at least it’s not sugar!).

I’m also going to start using the MFP app again. And I’m going to try to use the Reddit page as well to get inspired.

That being said, I would love to get suggestions as to other ways I can keep the weight-loss inspiration going when it comes to my blog. I don’t want to bog people down with my journey, but I would like some sort of way to keep myself accountable to get back to 145 to 150lbs.  Maybe a separate page? Maybe a reader that will text or e-mail me about it. Let me know!

Here are my stats as of now:

-          5’2”

-          165lbs

-          Goal of 150lbs

I have hypothyroidism but am on medication so it shouldn’t affect my weight gain/loss. Although I should be getting my most recent results soon.

June Goals

I’ve seen many people make monthly to do lists or set some goals for the month. I’m generally not a person to do this but because I still have SO much I have to do to get my house into a condition where I feel comfortable inviting people over. I hope to have a house warming party sometime this summer.

In order to do that I think I have to give myself a list of goals to accomplish by the end of June.  I get back from Argentina on June 2^nd, so it will be the perfect time to start. My flight gets in early in the morning so I hope I’m not too jet-lagged and I can start working on it!

O N E – Make sure that ALL clothing is put away into closets and dressers. This includes clothes that are on the ground. My ultimate goal is for Thomas to put his clothes in the hamper when he takes them off but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get him to do that. Work in progress on that front.

T W O – Make sure all trash/boxes are discarded. I think this one will be easy as most of this has already been thrown out, but there is still some trash that should be gone.

T H R E E – Organize kitchen! While everything in the kitchen has a place, those places are not organized. I need to figure out how I want to handle the pantry we have. It’s a tall cabinet with deep shelves and I need to figure out where I want to keep what.

F O U R – Boxes! This is the HUGE project for June. Most of my things (and I have a crap load of things) moved over from my parents place to the condo in office boxes. I need to clear them out in June. Many of them hold decorations which I need to decide where to put.  There are probably a dozen boxes that have to be emptied/re-organized.

F I V E – Desk! We now have desks but they are messily set up in the 2^nd office because of the aforementioned boxes. In order to do this I will need to move the boxes since they are blocking much of the room. The plan will probably be to put the boxes in the closet and take one out at a time and decide what to do with what’s in there. A lot of the stuff might end up staying in boxes.

S I X – Also in this office room I need to clear out the top of the built in cabinets because it is full of crap at the moment – including computer keyboards and a monitor, clothing, picture frames (empty ones), and I think hard drives. They all need to find a home so I can set up the TV and put in curtains (which I still have to buy).

S E V E N -  DECORATE! Okay, this might be pushing it. This will be a summer goal. I want to try to get picture frames up around the house and maybe do a wall that is for family pictures. Unfortunately we don’t really have a hallway that allows for this so we’ll have to come up with something.

E I G H T – Balcony – I bought a jasmine vine plant but I killed it pretty quickly – mostly because of the wedding and that I didn’t get a chance to water it. Luckily Lowe’s has a 1 year guarantee so I’ll be exchanging it in June and hopefully I’ll be able to keep it alive. I’d like it, ideally to grow across the bars of the balcony so that the sweet smell can enter the house. I LOVE jasmine!

N I N E – This is mostly done, but I need to clear off the bar and make sure all it has visible are nice bar type things (AKA alcohol!).

The previous items are all organizing type things, the following will be things that need to be fixed.

T E N – The light coverings in the bathroom need to exchanged – I have the material, it just needs to be installed.

E L E V E N – We need to call a plumber to get the sinks fixed as well as the bathtub drainage and shower. I also need to buy a shower head for our bathroom.

T W E L V E – There is a drawer in the bar that is broken and needs to be fixed.

T H I R T E E N – I want to put up a rod above the washer and dryer so that I can put curtains up and hide all the ugliness above the machines (most other units in this complex have done this). I have the curtains (donated by my mom) but I need to figure out the rod to put up.

F O U R T E E N – Our windows will be installed in June! That will be awesome! However it means we have to take down the blinds on the sliding glass door – which I think will suck big time.

F I F T E E N – Vacuum & wash the kitchen and bathroom floors. The floors are pretty nasty as this point. The carpet is okay but it should get a nice vacuuming once most of the other items are taken care of.

I think that’s about it. Quite a few things to tackle, right? Should I push some of these to July or just make it a June/July goal list? What do you think?