First 10 Pound Goal?? ACHIEVED!

I DID IT!!

11 Pounds lost since 3/10/12

I "only" lost 1.4 this week, which isn't exactly a lot, however I passed my first 10 pounds and I'm only 7 pounds away from my first 5% goal!  I'm torn between being a little sad I didn't lose more this week to feeling very good about what I've done in the last 4 weeks.  Mostly I'm proud of myself for sticking with this for about a month already and for the fact that I'm cooking great meals, eating all of my fruits and vegetables, and losing weight consistently. I'm also down another point for my daily points, so I am at 54 now, instead of the 56 I started at.  I got another 5lb sticker at the meeting this morning too! 

So, up next is my 5% goal, which is 18 pounds, or another 7 pounds.  I would like to do this within the month of April, but as long as I'm losing consistently I'm happy.  I did say that I'd reward myself with a manicure when I lost 10lbs, so sometime this week I'm going to do that for myself, and if anyone would like to join me, let me know! :) It's important to reward our accomplishments! I updated the ticker at the top of my blog to show my current weight loss.

Special shout-out today to my fiancee, Kristi, who had a fantastic weight-loss this week and I'm so proud of her!! I love you!  

Very proud of my wedding party too, they're all doing so well with Weight Watchers and other aspects of being healthy.  Without their support and friendship, I know this would be much more difficult, as it would without everyone else's support, friendship, and love too!!   So I guess I should shout-out to everyone today...thank you for helping me reach my first 10 pounds...here's to the next 7 so I can hit my 5% goal!! :) 

Headed to Anita's parent's house tonight for Passover with her family, and some friends.  I haven't been in a few years, but I know it'll be a fun night.  Tomorrow I'm off to Newburyport with Kristi to pick up my Grandmother and then head to my Dad's house for Easter Brunch.  I asked to bring a salad, so I know there is something very healthy on the menu. I'm making a delicious brunch-like salad with a variety of lettuce, fresh cut up strawberries, mandarin oranges, pecans, and a few different dressing choices.  It'll be light, healthy and delicious! 

Before I go, I wanted to share some meals I made yesterday and today, I like taking pictures, and I like cooking...so combining them and sharing is fun!  I'm not going to post points etc today, I'm just more interested in sharing pictures! 

For lunch yesterday I made leftover turkey taco salad, with refried beans and blue corn baked tortilla chips.  So good. 

For a snack yesterday evening, since dinner wasn't until 10:30pm, I had crackers with light cheese spread (only 1 pt for all of that!), dried edamame beans (so high in fiber and protein), and the other serving of the Kale and Bacon and Cannellini recipe. Very high protein and fiber snack!

For dinner last night I wanted to do something light, since I had the weigh-in this morning.  I made a very bright summery salad with marinated shrimp, fat-free feta salad, about a 1/3 serving of sliced almonds and lots of veggies.  I used lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red and orange peppers, cucumbers, carrots, and I tried radishes (I don't like them but Kristi does so she's going to be eating them all). Very good salad! 

 After the meeting this morning I was very hungry so I made a nice filling meal, since I probably won't eat until Passover tonight at 6pm.  I had some fresh fruit, a slice of bacon that was left over from cooking the other day, fat free cottage cheese with mixed fruit, and a bagel with garlic & herb cheese spread with 2 oz of sliced roast beef.  Filling and delicious!!

Well, that's all I've got going on for now...hope you enjoyed reading!! Have a great weekend. 

Success!

Today was a very good day.  I woke up on the right side of the bed I guess! I had 2 successes today. I made 3 delicious balanced meals...and I got out for some exercise!  I took pictures of breakfast and lunch, but I forgot to snap one of dinner before I got most of the way through it. Oh well!

Since my first 2 meals were so good, I wanted to share, and I'll include points after each food item.

Breakfast (English muffin, yogurt, fresh fruit, sausages, and coffee):


Banana - 0
Grapes - 0
Nonfat mixed berry yogurt - 2
English Muffin with apple butter - 3*
Chipotle and Peach Thin n' Trim Sausage (2) - 3
Coffee with Truvia and a splash of skim milk - 1

* Apple butter is less than a point per serving, and only a splash of skim milk was in the coffee so I counted that for a point, to even out the apple butter.

Total Points for the below meal: 9

Lunch (Roast Beef open faced sandwiches, veggies with hummus, pistachios, and rice cakes):

Carrots - 0

Celery - 0

Red Pepper Hummus (1.5 servings) - 3

Light wheat bread, 2 slices - 2

3oz Roast Beef - 3

Thin sliced cheese, 2 slices - 2

1/2 cup Pistachios - 5

Ranch Rice Cakes* - 2

* I ended up eating the rice cakes about 90min later as a snack instead of with lunch.

Total points for the below meal: 17 (Sorry for the sideways picture, I couldn't get it to turn!)

Today was sort of a lazy day, aside from cooking. I decided that we should go for a walk so my fiancee and I took our dog, Samson, for a 1.1 mile walk around the neighborhood. A little back story on this...a few weeks ago I decided to go for a walk and I got about 1/4 mile up the hill down the street and had to turn around and come home.  I went alone the first time, which doesn't help my motivation, and I guess I didn't realize how out of shape I was.  This time around I brought support, in my fiancee and our dog.  I was determined to go past where I did last time.  We walked out of our street and decided to take a left at the next street, which ended up being a dead-end, so we walked it and then walked back, then started The Hill.  This time I got to the top of the hill, and continued even further! Last time my walk was just under 1/2 mile. This time we were just over 1.1 miles.  It's not a long distance, but considering the hill, and how out of shape I am, I feel like I had a good "NSV", or non-scale victory today.  I forgot how energized it makes you feel when you exercise, I had all this energy while making dinner, and was in a great mood.

So, dinner...

Dinner was a taco salad, with all the delicious fixings. I used ground turkey instead of beef, and I used fat free sour cream, salsa, and Mexican cheese as toppers.  The salad included lettuce, red pepper, cherry tomatoes and cucumber.  This was all fantastically mixed together on top of some tortilla chips.    The meal totaled 22 points for my plate.  As a reminder, I have 55 points per day so my meals are going to be higher point values than most of yours, if you're on Weight Watchers.  I used extra chips and cheese to bulk up the meal, since I had 28 points left for the day as of dinner time, which is a lot.

No picture because I was too excited to eat it and forgot to set it up for a picture! Oh well, I think everyone knows what a taco salad looks like! :)

So, all in all I had a great day.  And I wanted to share that with you; my support system.

Thanks for reading, and I hope y'all had a great day too! Now we're watching A Fish Called Wanda, and then we're going to check out Betty White's new show, Off Their Rockers. Good night all!

Dedicated to Heidi, for being awesome!

I wanted to share with all of you what I was surprised with this morning on my way out the door to the Weight Watchers meeting.  Kristi, my fiancee, and I live with our friend Heidi in her house. Heidi is also one of my bridesmaids. As I said in a previous post, Heidi is also doing Weight Watchers, and is very supportive and a great inspiration for me, especially with her fancy cooking ideas sometimes! This morning she surprised me by leaving a great big inspirational message on a wall of her kitchen that she made into a chalk board.  This psyched me up for the meeting and certainly started my day off well.  She knew my goal today was to hit 10 pounds and while I didn't do it, seeing this really made my day! I wanted to share with everyone, and to say THANK YOU HEIDI for your friendship and your support! I should mention that she also put a piece of Press n' Seal on the glass slider door to the porch that said "Good Luck Sarah". So awesome. :) Below is a picture of the chalkboard surprise from this morning, sorry for the "inside jokes" but you get the idea! Pretty awesome huh?

I couldn't help but share it with you all! :) So as you saw in my last post, I had sort of a rough morning, which could easily start my downward spiral for the week. Instead of allowing that, I took a little nap to reset myself, and spent some nice quiet time with Kristi.  Once we were hungry, I went and made us a delicious healthy lunch.  Very simple: A sandwich (turkey deli meat, cheese, light mayo and lettuce), fresh fruit (apple and pear) and veggies (cucumber and carrots), light ranch dip, and a sweet ending with a 2pt chocolate cupcake (made with club soda) that had sugar free banana pudding in the center, made by Heidi.  See below for a picture of our yummy lunch!

Not sure what the rest of the day will hold, but I'm feel much better than I was earlier. A loss is a loss and 1.6lbs is nothing to be ashamed of!

A new beginning...

I'm 29 years old and do not want to be over 300 pounds when I turn 30 on January 3, 2013.  I discovered I was 306 pounds in January of 2006 when I was admitted to the hospital with a blood clot. I was shocked. I hadn’t been on a scale in a while. I had just turned 23, and I’ve gained weight every year since, sometimes losing some of it, but mostly gaining more.  I wish now that I was only 306. I'm not sure I'll admit on here what I weigh, at least until I'm under that initial goal of being under 300 by 30.  About three weeks ago I rejoined Weight Watchers to take an honest look at my life and make informed changes to better my health and lifestyle. My first week I lost 3.4 pounds and the second week I lost 4.6, for a total of 8 pounds in two weeks. I'm off to a great start! I've always struggled with my weight, since I was a kid.  I've tried many times to lose weight, but typically end up gaining it all back, and then gaining more.  I cannot keep living like this. I have an amazing support system between my fiancée, friends, and family so there is no reason that I cannot succeed.  I will succeed. There is a lot I want to do in my life, and my weight should never stop me from accomplishing my goals.

Welcome to my blog.  The first hundred pounds are only the beginning, and I will be taking this one day, and pound, at a time and not letting a huge number scare me off track.  Every five pounds I lose while on Weight Watchers, I get a cute little star sticker, and some rowdy applause, at the meeting which makes me feel great about my progress. Every 10 pounds I lose, I'm going to give myself a mini reward, such as a mani/pedi, or something else special, but staying away from food rewards, at least for now.  When I reach 25/50/75 I will do something a little bigger and when I reach 100 pounds, I may even throw myself a party! Want an invite? Then please follow and support me on this journey. If you are someone that knows me, even if only through this blog, then I ask you to hold me accountable and check in with me to see how I'm doing.  It's time to say goodbye to this weight forever.

I’m very lucky to say that I am engaged to an amazing woman who is supporting me through this, along with my entire bridal party.  All four of my girls in my bridal party, along with my fiancée, are all doing Weight Watchers.  I go to a meeting every Saturday morning with my Maid of Honor and one of my Bridesmaids. I don’t think I could ask for more support. It’s pretty amazing. My fiancée and I live with another one of my Bridesmaids, in her house, so our whole house is Weight Watchers friendly too, which makes a big difference.

The Biggest Loser this year is all about “excuses” and while I don’t think that the show has actually proven many excuses wrong, I am going to attempt to do so.  There are so many excuses out there for why someone cannot lose weight.  They don’t have time. They don’t like to cook. They don’t have the money. They don’t have support. They don’t have the willpower. They don’t have the motivation. It’s hard. It takes too much effort. They had a bad day so why bother. They have too much to lose so why start.  The list could go on.  I have an answer to each of those because I’ve dealt with all of them.  I’m here to stand up and face every one of my excuses head on, with the support I have surrounding me, and prove that excuses are meant to be proven wrong.  I hope you’ll join me on my journey.  Through reading this blog you may learn new things about me (depending on how well you know me), you may get some fun recipe ideas and you will likely see me at my best, and at my worst sometimes too. Through it all, I just ask that you support me and do your best to keep me on track. I couldn’t do it without any of you that are reading this, for various reasons.  So, in advance, thank you.