Sand Up Sunday - Week 9

You may have noticed that we didn't post last week. Rebekah decided that she needed to take a step back from the link up, but Britt and I wanted to keep going. We have a new button and just a different posting timeline. 

We will now be posting the first and third Sunday of the month. We figured it can be hard to post each week and sometimes there isn't a big difference from one week to another. We still hope you'll join us! The button is at the bottom of this post! 

   How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I’ve been seriously lacking in the weight loss goals lately. Something pushed me off track and it’s been hard to get back on. I’m still going between 158 (never 157.9, always 158) and 159.6. I definitely need to work on this. At least I need to hit 157! At work we had our mid-way weight loss check in and I had lost 5lbs.

How many inches did you gain or lose?

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

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

I’m still LOVING my FitBit and except for a few days week before last in which I just did not get out to do long walks in the evenings. I did finally get back on track this week and I am above my 70k goal per week! In the last 7 days my FitBit says I've walked: 94,854 (as of Saturday night - and of that 21,049 are from Saturday).

What was your biggest challenge this week?

I was pretty good this week but I did got out to eat twice. Part of my problems the last couple of weeks have been home problems. We had a gas leak and so the gas was off for over a week. Then our garbage disposal broke so doing dishes was difficult since I couldn’t run the dishwasher (yea, I know, that’s princess-y of me to say/do).  We also had a lot of issues with our refinance and our TV/Internet. It’s all been resolved now (well, minus the refinance, that’s in the works) so things should be getting back to normal.

What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

I started eating apples with Tajin (look it up if you haven’t heard of it!) and have been enjoying it. I’ve also been sticking with Yoplait Low-Fat (90 Calorie) yogurt cups (in Cherry mostly).

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

Get back on the wagon when you fall off. Eventually it will pay off!

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Stand Up Sunday - Week 8

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose? 

I started the week at 158 lbs. I ended at 158 lbs. I broke even.

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?

So far the FitBit is working. I walked a total of 80,266 steps (as of 8:30pm on Saturday) this week! I try my hardest to make my step goal each day. I take my puppy for walks in the evenings to get to 10,000 and don't come home until I do! 

4. What was your biggest challenge this week?

I went to be on a TV show on Thursday so I couldn't control my eating there, but I was pretty good this week. I did, however, go out to lunch twice and then on Friday a co-worker brought cupcakes for her birthday and OMG it was amazing. 

It was raspberry filled! 

5. What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

Well... I don't know if this is really healthy but it's been keeping my occupied. I was introduced to Starbucks' Very Berry Hibiscus. It is delicious! Best of all the calories are relatively low. 130 calories for the Trenta size (31oz). 

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

Don't deprive yourself of things you like - you'll end up eating more of it! 

An InLinkz Link-up

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 6

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose? 

I started the week at 158.8lbs. I ended at 158.6lbs. A total loss of .2 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?

So far the FitBit is working. I walked a total of 82,785 steps (as of 8:30pm on Saturday) this week! I try my hardest to make my step goal each day. Those of you who are friends with me on FitBit you might see hat I didn't reach 10k steps on Monday or Friday, but as you can see by my total number of steps I made up for it on other days.

4. What was your biggest challenge this week?

The weekends are becoming my hardest challenge. When I'm home or, worse, when I'm out doing things on the weekends I can get off track. This week because Thomas had surgery at the hospital I had a hard time. There was a farmer's market there that day and I bought some not-so-good things. They are all gone now, but the damage was done.

5. What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

A week ago I went picked grapefruit and oranges, so I was loving grapefruit this week! Delicious!! 

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

My issues with weekends then to be that I go out and don't bring anything to eat with me and then when I get home my blood sugar is low and I just need to eat and don't have the energy to make myself anything. So plan your weekends out as you do your weekdays would be my advice - at least for myself.

Earth Balance Reivew

It's okay that I chose something organic and delicious to cook! It's also okay that it was free! 

I received a coupon for a free Earth Balance product, however all opinions are mine alone. 

At Wal*Mart they had 4 different options in the butter section. I went back and forth over them. They had the Original, Soy, and Organic and then the Coconut spread.

I love coconut flavors. My mother-in-law always made a delicious onion mushroom combination using coconut oil and I loved it. Maybe I could replicate the taste with this one! I grabbed it off the shelf immediately.

I’ve been counting calories for weight loss lately and so what I usually eat as a side to my main dish is cut up onions and mushrooms – both are very low in calories. I usually sautee them with a little bit of olive oil, which is 120 calories per tablespoon. This spread is only 100! Score! (The original is only 80!). I used 1 – 1 ½  tablespoons to cook enough onions and mushrooms for 2 servings (at least).

I melted half the spread and then added the onions and finally the mushrooms. After cooking it for a couple of minutes I went ahead and added the other half of the spread on top and let it simmer for another 15 minutes or so (while I finished cooking the rest of my meal and my husbands’).

The verdict was that it was DELICIOUS! The onions and mushrooms had the perfect amount of coconut flavor. It added the extra oomph that the side dish needed to make me not grow tired of it. I will definitely use it again for my next batch.

I will try to cut the amount I use and see if it still tastes good so that I can cut down on the calories I eat. If there were any way for them to cut the calories by 10 or 20 it would make me happier, but I will definitely buy it again!

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!

Stand Up Sunday - Week 4

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I started the week at 159.8lbs. I ended at 158.4. A total loss of 1.4lbs.

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?

Last week I INCREASED the number of steps I took from the week before. This week I walked 11,375 more steps than last week. I walked a total of 66,201 steps. This is mostly because I went for a hike with co-workers on Saturday morning which gave me over 15k steps for the day. We're doing another hike next week, so I'm sure I'll do well next week, too! 

4.      What was your biggest challenge this week?

Can I talk about periods here? We all okay with that? Good. Well, I started mine this week and it brought the mental weakness of “well that means I can snack on yummy treats!” with it. On Tuesday I ended up eating more than I wanted to and dined with cereal (French Toast Crunch to be exact) – however on Wednesday I woke up weighing the same as Tuesday morning… so yay! Also crap is going on at work so it definitely made me want to treat myself with sweets. Also the Cutie’s I bought this week were not very good so I was not too interested in eating them.

5.      What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

With the clementine’s not being too sweet I didn’t really find an alternative snack. However, I went back to an oldie but goodie… fruit cups! Only 60 calories each! I put same Tajin in it (if you don’t know what it is you should look it up… adds some flavor!) and it is delicious.

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

I’m not the one to say it since I fell but I guess this advice is as much for myself as it is for anyone reading this. Don’t let hard times in other aspects of your life make you want to ruin your goals. Sure, I enjoyed the extra sweets I had, but will I when I step on the scale and the number went up? I was lucky this time, but maybe next time I won’t be.

Stand Up Sunday - Week 3

This was a bit of world wind week. I joined the Biggest Loser at work. I'm on a team with 4 or 5 other people and we are competing against the other teams as well as other counties. They weighed me there, fully clothed and in the afternoon, at 163.8. 

Let’s get to the questions…

1.      How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I started the week at 161lbs. I ended at 159.8. A total loss of 1.2lbs.

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?

Last week the number of steps that I took decreased, so I really worked hard to increase my steps this week. I’m proud of myself because on Wednesday I took Lance for a walk after work and when I was done with my usual route I was at about 8,000 steps. I thought that it was enough… but I pushed myself and made it to 9,905 steps by doing an extra walk around a block.

I walked a total of 54,726 steps.

(6,425 steps MORE than last week!)

4.      What was your biggest challenge this week?

This week was actually pretty easy. Thomas was out of town so I didn’t have to worry about making him dinner and making me something different within my calories. I did have issues with worrying about my weight loss/gain. I had a decent weekend, but I did have some excess on Sunday because of the Super Bowl. On Monday morning I weighed in at 163.6 (or so). I had no idea why I had gone up over 2 pounds in 2 days. Then, after eating lunch on Monday I figured it out – I had been eating cup of noodles for lunch. While they were within my calorie limits – they contain nearly 1200mg of sodium causing a lot of water retention! I cut the soup out and went back to my Lean Cuisine lunches and voila! I was back down to 161 on Wednesday and down to 159.8 on Friday. I hadn’t seen a 5 in a long time. I’ll eat soup, but I won’t have it several days in a row like I was doing (they are just SO good!).

5.      What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

I discovered FiberOne soft baked bars a couple of weeks ago and bought a box of the peanut butter ones, then at Costco I saw gingerbread flavored ones. I love gingerbread. They are delicious and only 90 calories per bar. It’s not a huge bar, but it’s enough to satisfy a sweet craving. Yum!

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

Push yourself! When you need to do that little extra to get to your goal, do it! It’s worth it in the end!

Step Up Sunday (Week 2)

I think that I will start my posts with whatever random weight/eating thoughts are in my head and then move on to the questions.

So this week saw a lot of me wanting to each just for the sake of eating. I grew up eating no earlier than 7pm, sometimes as late as 9pm. In Argentina dinner time is 9 or 10pm (or even later). My family followed this for the most part.

My husband is an early eater. If he could, he would eat at 5pm. Unfortunately for him I get off work at 5:30 and I typically don’t get to work on dinner right away (even more so now that I tend to take the dog for a walk before I make him dinner).

I think that this is the problem, though. I am eating dinner before 7pm which is causing me to be hungry later in the evening and which also makes me antsy to want to munch on something. I did go ahead and pick up some low-cal snacks (Fiber One Brownies at the moment – 90 calories) so that helped a couple of nights.

Sometimes during day I also just want to chew on something or eat something. It’s hard to deal with these desires and keep on track calorie wise – but I’m trying to concentrate on drinking a lot of water and tea so not only keep my mind occupied but to keep something coming to my lips.

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I started the week at 161lbs. I ended at 161lbs . A total loss/gain of nothing! 

2.  How many inches did you gain or lose?

I sort of feel like my size 10 pants are feeling a bit looser than last week, which I can imagine to not just be my imagination, 2.8lbs was probably water weight, but enough to loosen them up.

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

I walked a total of 47,301 steps.

(3,938 fewer steps than last week).

4. What was your biggest challenge this week?

As I mentioned above, my biggest challenge was not eating for the sake of eating. I had to refocus myself in the evenings to avoid munching. Not having bad snacks in the house helped to diffuse it as well. My other struggle, mentally, was that I weighed myself at 161.2 every single day from Sunday to Friday and it drove me crazy. I started moving the scale around to see if it made a difference (it didn’t).

5. What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

I’ve been eating Yoplait Low-Fat yogurt as a snack at work daily. I’ve also been sticking to pork chops. Pork chops are tasty and also very lean. I sauté them with Saute Express and some beef broth and it is delicious. I’ll pair it with ¼ cup of couscous and saute a mixture of mushrooms and onions. I do add a bit of sugar to caramelize the onions, but just about a teaspoon or two for a batch that lasts me 3 meals. The whole thing is a total of 300 or so calories. If I add veggies it only increases it by 20-40 calories at most.

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

Going with my health meal for the week, I suggest buy fresh pork chips (I like the ones with bone more) and saute it. Delicious!

Stand Up Sunday - Weight Loss Journey - A LINK UP

The weight needs to come off. I started off well a few weeks ago, but it was a mistake to really start around the holidays. At least it was a mistake for me. 
I couldn't control myself. I ate everything that looked good. I might not have eaten a lot of it, but I ate it. I ate out and ate dessert. 
But I'm done eating. At least done eating all the crappy stuff that does the opposite of making me feel good. 
I was so happy when I saw Rebekah post about wanting to start a Link-Up about weight loss. I've seen some others out there, but they seemed to dwindle out. I need the push to keep myself accountable. 
So I'm going to start again. I'm going to try to lose the 20 to 30 pounds that would mean putting in me in the "average" BMI range instead of the overweight or obese ones. 
The link-up will consist of a series of questions (which I answered below to get us started). If you wish to participate in this link-up all you have to do is copy the questions and answer them (you may, of course, pick and choose the ones that you wish to answer for any given week).  Link back to us each Sunday and give us an update.  Feel free to share anything you want and to not share things you'd rather keep to yourself (weight for example). Check out each other blogs to see how we are doing and give some positive feedback to keep us on the right track. 
Let us go first...

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose?

I weighed myself on Tuesday, January 20th and I weighed in at: 163.8. My weigh in procedure is to use the bathroom and weigh myself right before getting dressed for the day. I feel that this is the most accurate measure and generally it has me at the lowest weight of the day.

I weighed myself on Saturday (yesterday) and I weighed in at 161 even.

So that's a difference of 2.8 pounds.

2. How many inches did you gain or lose?

So this is hard for me. At least at the moment because I don't have a measuring tape. Instead I'll stick to my pant size.

I had reached a 4/6 a year or so ago, and am wearing 8/10 right now. The 8 is a bit tight but it fits, the 10 is more comfortable. I will update how comfy each size is since I probably won't change actual pant size for a while.
.,

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

I haven't decided if I want to have a step goal or not. Mostly because my week nights tend to be crazy and sometimes I get to walk a lot and sometimes I don't. The goal that they say we should reach is 10,000 steps a day, 70,000 a week. I'm hoping to reach half of that to start and see how that goes. Maybe setting a goal for steps will inspire me to go on longer walks with my puppy (and I'll be honest - he is the only reason I go for walks these days). 

I use my phone (Galaxy S5) for my step counting.

Apparently there is no easy way to see how many steps I took in a week so I had to add up my steps for each day. For Sunday, January 18th thru Saturday, January 24th I walked a total of 51,239 steps. I made that goal of half the steps last week when I wrote most of this post. I didn't really try to make the 35,000 step goal - but I reached 51,239 pretty easily. 

4. What was your biggest challenge this week?

This week my biggest challenge was getting back into the hang of things. Besides the holidays I went to my sisters' house last weekend were I indulged in birthday cake and ice cream and eating out for just about every meal. Getting back into a good path of eating within my calories was a struggle. 

5. What is your favorite healthy snack or meal?

Lately my favorite snacks have been clementines (Cuties) and tomatoes. I'll eat them as snacks during the day at work. They are easy to eat and low in calories so I can have 3 or 4 and not feel like I'm ruining my calorie count for the day. 

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

I was able to lose 25 lbs simply by using My Fitness Pal and being an active member of the Reddit /loseit. I kept it of for over a year, but then I got married and went on a honeymoon and all was forgotten. 

My advice is to keep coming back to this link up, commenting on each others post (and we'll comment on yours) and keep each other inspired to come back and show are successes and even our downfalls (because there is no doubt that they will happen at one point or another).

Not all my posts will be this wordy, this is definitely an intro post to the link-up! I hope you will join us! 

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An InLinkz Link-up

Announcing Step Up Sunday Link-Up!

I am excited to announce that I am teaming up with Rebekah and Britt to bring you the Step Up Sunday Linkup!

It will be a weekly linkup where we can all share our progress in trying to lose weight while supporting one another. The linkup will also be a great way to accountable to your weight loss and health goals. It's like a Weight Watchers meeting without the actual meeting! Don't worry - no one will see or know your weight if you don't want them to! 

We will be posting our progress using "-3 lbs" or "+3 lbs" each week. Feel free to post even if you just go down an ounce or two - it all counts! The linkup will go live next Sunday January 25th and every Sunday after that, so be sure to log your current stats to track your progress for this week! 

I know for most of us, posting on Sunday is pretty foreign, but it seems like Sunday is a common weigh-in day for a lot of people and each post should be quick and easy! Below are the prompts for each week. Feel free to respond to whichever ones you like. If you don't feel comfortable sharing the number of pounds or inches lost, that is ok! And if you happen to gain, don't be embarrassed. It happens to all of us and we are here to support one another. Also, if you have a pedometer, you can set a weekly step goal for yourself and track your progress every week, or simply track your weekly exercise if you don't track your steps. 

1. How many pounds did you gain or lose? 

2. How many inches did you gain or lose? 

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

4. What was your biggest challenge this week? 

5. What is your favorite healthy snack or meal? 

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

Feel free to grab the button and link up with us next Sunday - January 25th! 

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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.

Wednesday Confessional

I'm making this fast because I did not have something scheduled for today...

... and I confess that even though I was not up on blogging, I did go ahead and prep a meal last nigh for tonight's dinner. Tonight will be pasta. How do I prep pasta you ask? Well by sautéing the onions with mushrooms last night and then this morning sticking them with with the pasta sauce and other things into a slow cooker. 

... I confess that the weight loss thing lost steam when I saw Costco had pumpkin pies in! Those are delicious. I may or may not have eaten an entire pie myself. 

Except that I put on a LOT more whipped cream than that.

... I confess that I had a tough night on Monday. Nothing went my way (minor compared to others) and I became over whelmed and began crying. 

... I confess that I had some vivid dreams last night. I couldn't explain them all, but as I type this I can remember thinking things were real and now realizing that they couldn't have happened. 

... I confess that I went to the back to school night for my niece and nephew's school last night. They both have amazing teachers! I think they will both have a great year (5th grade and 1st grade). 

... I confess that Thomas and I tried a restaurant that was new to us for lunch yesterday (awesome part of working down the block from each other) and it was great. Plus Tuesday's are their special offer days so we lucked out. 

... I confess that my intent is to use the 2 weeks that Thomas is out of town to clean up the office and get it organized. I might make a trip to IKEA and buy a bookcase that I really feel like we need at this point. 

And that will be it for this week!