Amy's Journal: Comments Welcome!

[Amy&Dan]

Thanks Tracy, your support is always right where I need it!

First let me say this day has been sort of miserable. It started out well, got a bunch of stuff done, then got dd up and told her she could come to WW with me, she had testing at the new school this afternoon and I told her we could go back to school shopping and have lunch after my meeting and still have time to get her to the new school for her placement testing. Got to WW, was up a couple of pounds. I know its food, its also water, I knew it would not be great since I just felt like a stuffed sausage. My ring was really tight, my clothes were tight. I almost didn't go but then realized I have to do this. I simply have to do it and going to WW is key for me. So off we went. Decent meeting, practically empty since at noon on Wednesday everyone is either at work or home with their kids since its sitll summer. I really didn't feel that much except just weariness about this whole issue. Didn't get upset, didn't wish I hadn't gone just wished I knew what the answer is for me. I did talk to one of the ladies that works there and told her about my 73 day challenge and she kindly told me to chop that down into one week increments. She said smaller goals work better. I have to agree. So each week, I will keep track of my good days. I am determined that I will have six, on target days per week. For some reason, it works better for me to take the bulk of my flex points on one day. Probably because I get 31 points since I am so heavy. When I get down to a lower weight and get maybe only 24 points, I'll need more flex points on a daily basis. She told me that was how she lost her weight, using the flex points on one day where she just lived it up.

Then went to Target, ran out of time, so didn't get all the back to school shopping done. Oh well, school doesn't start til the 25th, so I have time.

Took dd to school, she tested low in math, was expecting that they will give her support for that. But what really surprised me was that she tested low in reading too. That is very unusual. Technically she shouldn't be getting any electives since she technically needs support in both areas and kids that need that lose an elective for each area they need support in. She really wants to do choir so they are letting her do that, she loses art for math support and they will alert the Language Arts teacher to give her some added support and keep an eye on her in class. I am just so bummed. Have a kid that struggles really stinks. For her esp., now that she's older there's a definite stigma attached to special ed. And I just keep wondering why its this way. I have spent thousands of dollars on tutoring, they've given her every test under the sun, she is intelligent, she's not learning disabled (they've tested her like three times now), I just don't get it. And I feel like that private school was the biggest mistake. Because in a sense she lost out on the special help our district would have given her to better prepare her for middle school.

So not a good day. And I have to go to stepdad's for dinner. He is sort of on my nerves lately. My mom has been gone exactly seven months as of yesterday, and I am still trying to figure out the boundaries and relationship where he is concerned. He will as usual, offer me 15 different types of junk food, beer, Pepsi and then proceed to say stupid things like "I don't know anyone who tries harder to lose weight with less success than you". Well, gee thanks, I don't either! I can tell you this, when he finds out about our cruise, he may want to go and I will flatly have to tell him no. My days of travelling with him are over. I don't intend to say a thing about it for sometime, but the kids might let it slip. I don't want to tell them not to talk about it, because that puts them on the spot. But I know he wants to cruise and I just am not up for that. Let one of his darling sons take him! But bottom line after my weigh in and the news that my dd is well below grade average in both math and reading, going over there tonight is about as appealing as a root canal.

Weigh in today: 240.0 Nice even number huh???

Food:
Slim Fast
Grilled chicken sandwich, ice tea
Snack: bowl of Kashi.
Dinner: Salad with lowfat dressing, cheese and chicken (this is what I am bringing to stepdad's lets see if I can resist the crap he'll serve. And of course part of me doesn't want to take my own food since it opens the door for his "so great you are trying, I just don't get why it doesn't work" speech). You know the man has a doctorate, you'd think he could maybe be a bit smarter!

 

[lovinaz]

Hang in there! I bet it was hard to see the number on the scale, but as you know, there will be good weeks and there will be bad. The key is to STICK WITH IT, and don't let that stuff get you down. My DH always tells me that stressing about it makes it worse. And you stress about it a LOT. Put more emphasis on the good things (like how awesome that cruise is going to be!) and less on weight loss and food. Easier said than done, I know...

I'm sorry I don't have any good advice about DD. Just be there for her and help her as much as you can. She doesn't have to be gifted to get a good education. As long as she tries her best and takes advantage of the extra help the school offers, that is all you can ask of her. She'll get through it ok.

I know what you mean about not wanting your stepdad on vacation with you. My MIL invited herself to go to Europe with us next summer. I was NOT HAPPY! Then I just decided to not mention it anymore, and hope she forgets about it... We are getting our tickets using FF miles so I think it might be cost prohibitive for her to go. Stick to your guns and tell him it is a family bonding trip.

 

[Amy&Dan]

Thanks Amy, here's hoping your MIL does indeed forget!! I am keeping my fingers crossed for you on that one. At one time I would have loved for stepdad to come with us, but given his age and his sons, I just wouldn't feel comfortable. I do stress all the time, mostly because I am afraid that I am incapable of losing weight and also afraid I'll drop dead before I'm 50. Seeing the "40" decade again (as in 240) was really upsetting. I haven't seen that number since January of 2006. Maybe I won't see it again.

I did very well at dinner, I did take my own food. Had to laugh, he gave me an article he cut of out the paper on losing weight, and then proceeded to offer me some M&M's! The article looks interesting, I'll have to read it tomorrow.

Here is my food and points total for the day:
Slim Fast (3)
Chicken Sandwich (7) lettuce and tomato (0)
Some of dd's french fries: (3)
Kashi w/ skim (4)
6 oz. of chicken (6)
3 cups of lettuce (0)
2 TB 2% cheese (1)
1/2 cup garbanzo beans: (2)
Lowfat dressing (2)
1 cup of watermelon (1)
Total: 29

Came in 2 points under. I love garbanzo beans, it added a nice touch and some fiber to my salad.

Avoided, peanut M&M's, pizza, Pepsi, more french fries and diet Coke. Stuck with water and ice tea.


I am a bit hungry right now and I do have two points but I think I'll just go to bed and read. I really hate to eat anything else this late. My plan is to maybe go to the rec center tomorrow. I'd like to do that again, I haven't gone much this summer since when I walk I do it outside. But my knees are killing me to the point when I go up a hill they almost feel like they will give. The rec center is nice and flat.

 

[lovinaz]

Great job sticking to your points yesterday and avoiding all those empty calories!!! See, you even lived to tell about it!!! One day at a time, it CAN be done!

I hope you are able to make it to the rec center today. I have taken the whole week off exercising...

Keep up the good work and the next time you see the "40" decade, it will be preceded by a "1"!!

 

[goldcupmom]

You did GREAT, Amy! I'm so proud of you!!! temptation is always there kicking us in the behind!

Hope today is a good one. Did you make the rec center??

 

[toystoryduo]

You are doing a great job, Amy!!!! Were you able to get to the REC?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, WISH sis!

 

[Amy&Dan]

Thanks Tracy, Julie and Amy. I am really trying to avoid those empty calories and its not easy. I didn't rec center. My knees were killing me. I did lift some weights here at home so I got something in. I hope to walk today.

Yesterday was another good day with food. I realy struggled with feeling tired and wanting to snack. I am clearly going through Diet Coke withdrawl, I finally allowed myself 6 oz. of Diet Dr. Pepper with some microwave popcorn to get me through the afternoon!

Thursday's food:
Breakfast: Slim Fast (3)
Snack: Fiber One bar (2)
Lunch: Lean Pocket (5), crackers (3) carrots (0)
Snack: Popcorn (1), 1TB peanut butter (2)
Dinner: Taco Salad with guac and some chips : 15
Total points: 31

Too many carbs. But I did at least get in four servings of veggies so that was good.

Today its rainy and like fall, we are only supposed to hit 60! So its a nice day to turn on the oven, I am going to make my baked chicken and veggies for tonight. Very nice comfort food that is healthy!

 

[postesf]

Hi Amy! I just wanted to check in with you. Sorry to hear about the stuggles w/ DD. I'm sure that can be frustrating. You will get through it though.

Your RC Cruise sounds nice. I've never been on Royal Caribbean, just Carnival. I expect it will be lots of fun though!

60 degrees! I wish it was a bit cooler here. We still have a few more months before we get much cooler weather.

Hope you have a good weekend!
Stacie

 

[toystoryduo]

Great job yesterday, Amy!

Your dinner for tonight sounds yummy. If you have any leftovers, you can send them my way.

I hope you have a great weekend!

 

[lovinaz]

Great job yesterday! Even though you had too many carbs, at least you stayed within your points. I'm sure you'll get to the point where you have more nutritionally balanced days. But there are always going to be those carb-heavy ones too! Usually at a certain time of month...

Keep it up!

 

[Amy&Dan]

Thanks Amy, Tracy, and Stacie. We are still really cold and wet here, it was in the low 50's yesterday afternoon. 37 degrees colder than normal! And its been raining non stop, I am definitely not cut out to live in the Pacific Northwest, I am about to go crazy.

I used up one flex point yesterday, here is my food:

Breakfast: slim fast: 3
Lunch: Lean pocket: 5
Snack: crackers: 6
Dinner: 2 pieces of chicken (leg and thigh), 1 cup of green beans, 1 cup of onion/carrot mix, 1 roll. Total for dinner: 12
Snack: Microwave popcorn: 2
Beer: 4
Total for the day: 32

Could have done without the beer and the roll and I should have added a salad. Although I did at least get in 4 servings of vegetables. I also added my "healthy oil" to the veggies, we are supposed to have 2 t of oil a day and I rarely do that. It did help me to feel much fuller.

One thing I did that also helped was I left the kitchen last night. I was having a hard time stopping myself from eating. I had the popcorn and the two light beers and I was feeling like I could go back and eat another piece of chicken or roll. So I just got up and left and told dh to put away the food and I would do the dishes later on. That was at 8:30 last night and I haven't been downstairs since! Once I got upstairs and away from the food, I was fine.

We have dinner with friends tonight, that will be tough but the good news is that I have 34 flex points remaining and I plan to eat light the rest of the day. I am okay with sort of eating what I want as this "Free day" thing is probably the only way I can keep myself legal the other six days of the week. Still, I don't plan to go absolute hog wild and I plan to really focus on a night with friends vs. a night with food. My friend has been on vacation all week and hasn't had time to cook or shop so she is doing Qdoba burrito bar take out for dinner. Which is good since I can figure on Dottie's site what the points are for that. She did ask me to bring my Velveeta based queso so I am going to really have to watch that. She calls it my "famous dip". Too bad I am only famous for the world's greasiest dip!


I plan to leave pretty quickly to shop for healthy foods for the week. I didn't have enough good choices in the house this week and that's why I was eating hot pockets and other foods that aren't that great. I do like the microwave popcorn thing. That one snack saved me on several occasions. I need to not buy anymore crackers since I consider those pretty empty calories. And I can have about 10 times more popcorn for less points. I also need to buy some ff/sf pudding to get the sweet craving taken care of. Other than my weight lifting on Thursday and a short walk on Tuesday, I haven't exercised. But I am okay with that as my focus is to get my food very much under control. I plan to walk either today or tomorrow and then one other time before Wednesday. That gives me my three times per week total that I am shooting for right now. All things considered, I feel like I am off to a pretty decent start.

And a nice concrete reminder of why I need to this now is that its cold and jeans would be the obvious wardrobe choice for today, tonight in particular. My jeans don't fit. Now this little cold front will move out soon but the bottom line is that fall/winter is just around the corner and I need to fit into my clothes before that starts. Maybe I should squeeze into the jeans tonight and be so stuffed in them I can't overeat!

Thanks for reading, hope everyone has a great weekend!

 

[lovinaz]

You know, I have done the "wear tight pants to a party" trick before. It really DOES work! You'll have to let me know if you do it!! I know you can focus on the social part of the evening as opposed to the food. Remember your priorities!

That's great that you've found a snack to get you through the tough times. And the ff/sf pudding will do wonders as well. Get to the store and get your meals for the week planned out, and you will have won half the battle for the week!

Have an awesome time with your friends!

 

[Amy&Dan]

Amy,
The jeans are so tight, I can't get them fastened! Somewhere in this is a funny moment... Me squeezing myself into jeans that are too tight so I'll avoid overeating but alas they are so tight I can't even get them on! Again, it would be funny if not for the fact that not long ago, those jeans were so loose I almost gave them away. I am looking forward to an evening with friends. I swear, its like I am pms'ing, but I don't know, I don't have a schedule with that anymore. Who knows!

Food today:
Slim Fast
1/2 McDonald's hamburger (ran tons of errands with dh and I was way too hungry so we split that tiny burger).
Lunch: Subway 6" club, no cheese, oil or mayo. 1 oz. of baked chips
Snack: WW lemon cake (1 point)

I found those WW snacks, they are one point each for a cookie, or small (smaller than twinkie small) snack cake. Total junk but only one point. I told Dan and the kids to keep their paws off my goodies and I'll keep my paws off of theirs!

I will post points tomorrow, I don't have my WW points guide handy but I wanted to post while its fresh in my mind. Have drank a ton of water.

And Amy, thanks for checking on my journal and making the special trip over to WISH to do so. Its much appreciated!

 

[lovinaz]

So, how did your night out go? Everything was as fun as expected, I hope!!

I am happy to support you, us beagle-loving Amy's have to stick together! I am still toying with the idea of starting another journal, but I don't want to get back to being so obsessed with the whole weight loss (or lack of in my case! ) thing. We shall see...

You are doing really good with your eating and tracking points, keep it up!

 

[Goofydiane]

Amy,

You are doing a great job with the points and as you note, not always the best choices, but you aren't going overboard and that is a big success. You need to be proud of that! The exercise will come and right now enjoy spending time with your kids and family.

I really enjoy some of those WW snacks, especially the Carrot Cake ones. I agree that they are total junk, but for 1 point it is worth it. I find myself enjoying the frozen ice cream choices better, they last longer and I think they are more filling. I think the Cookies and Cream bars are just 2 points and I will have those as my evening snack.

I gave up caffeine back in February and I don't miss it or pop at all, it always made me feel bloated. Every now and then I want a root beer and I'll have one or two of them and then I'm done again for a while.

I'll take your weather right now and send you some of ours. It is in the 80's and humid! I hate waking up in the morning and feeling sticky right after I get out of the shower, so send some of that cooler weather up to MN!

Congrats on booking the cruise! I've never been on a cruise so I can't help at all, but it sounds like a great time.

Keep going strong!

 

[Amy&Dan]

Well just a quick post before I return to the Olympics!

First of all, thanks Diane and Amy for checking in on me during what I know is a busy weekend. Diane, the cooler weather is ending slow but sure! Its been sort of nice and gotten me in the mood for fall. Amy, I would love it if you did a journal, but understand your hesitations. Its not easy making all of these choices is it?

Dinner Party: Too many chips with queso. Plain and simple. Did fine at dinner, skipped the huge tortialla and just had some chicken, lettuce, rice and cheese with salsa. Very tasty. But again, way too many chips and queso. Had two rum and diets, very light on the rum, probably really only one. And my 40 year old friend brought jello shots, which was sort of amusing that a bunch of 40 something adults would drink those. I had two, they were tiny, probably about a .5 oz. of rum in each one. And she said they were sugar free jello, gee how healthy. Skipped dessert and had two huge glasses of water and two huger glasses of ice tea. Which has not left my body, probably due to the chips and queso.

Today: skipped breakfast, slept in, had an early lunch at the pizza place and did well. Only had three small pieces of pizza(this is CiCi's its not bad on points at all, about 3 points per slice), 1/2 cup pasta with marinara and 2 cups of romaine with one tablespoon 1000 island and two glasses of ice tea. Oh and one small breadstick. For an all you can eat buffet, I felt pretty good. Skipped the gooier pizza slices, dessert and more breadsticks.

Dinner, well not good AT ALL. Had some leftover chips and queso. Threw out the rest. Also had one WW carrot cake (Diane you are so right about those). So 2 servings veggies and more salty foods. Can we say b-l-o-a-t-e-d? Last night's dinner and today's dinner (and really the lunch too) will probably kill me. But I threw out all bad foods and made out my menus and will press on.

I wish it could have been better but I also have to acknowledge it could have been worse.

Oh and I completely didn't exercise. Hoping to do that tomorrow. The kids ahve ortho appts and I may take them with me to the rec center while I walk or I may just bring them home and walk around here. But I need to do something on that front.

 

[toystoryduo]

Hi Amy,

I think you did a pretty good job this weekend. Yes, you did have some salty foods, but several glasses of water will take care of that.

How's the job search coming? Any good leads yet?

I hope you have a great day ahead!

 

[lovinaz]

Sounds like you had a fun weekend!!! You made the best out of your situation. Remember, today is a new day to get back on points! You had your splurge, which you had planned for, and now it's time to get back to work.

Wow, both kids doing ortho at the same time?? That's brave! They want DD9 to go now, but I think I am going to wait until DS12 is done...

 

[Amy&Dan]

Tracy: Funny you should ask about the job, read on!

OMG Amy you have no idea! Brave is now broke on the ortho front.

Took both kids in today. Ds is halfway through his one and only set, dd got her first set off about six months ago and I thought was supposed to get second set on in the spring. This was perfect since ds will get his off in April and I will have them paid off in March. I thought this was just a routine look in her mouth to see how things are post set #1 and post losing several teeth in the last few months. Apparently not. Found out today, they want to put them on Friday and they want to put a device in her bottom jaw to move that jaw forward to correct her overbite which has gotten worse. Poor kid has my screwed up bite and jaw. And its not the $3,000 they orginally quoted its $6,800. I almost died. So now I have double payments for the next six months plus over twice what I thought I would owe on dd's. I really wanted to wait but they said it needs to be done now. I almost cried. They put the spacers in which caused her to lose one of her last baby teeth, so she's in agony and miffed that she is getting her braces on so soon. And that "device" looks like a torture tool, you can't see it because its on the bottom in the back but it doesnt' look like it will be pleasant.

Needless to say I need to get a part time job. And I am terrified. I am not really qualified to do anything. I need something really flexible. I am going to apply at Target, Sams Club and maybe some of the stores at the nearby mall. So glad I went to college. Those history classes are really coming in handy.

I also came home and ate too much but stopped myself before an all out stress binge.

Breakfast: Slim Fast: 3
Lunch: WW meal: 3
Snack: Baked Lays: 9, Brownie: 4
Total for the day so far: 19

I have enough points for dinner and am slamming the water. I am so darn bloated still. And my face is broken out, I had to borrow ds13's Clearsil acne wash last night! I am wondering if TOM is on the horizon.

I did get up and walk for 30 moinutes on the treadmill first thing. So that was good.

I am just scared for dd to have this medieval looking thing in her mouth and hope I can find a job that will work with the kids schedule. Again, after 14 years home, I am in complete panic mode.

Boy, I would NOT have booked a cruise if I had known this was coming.

Just really trying to hang in there with the stress and figure out what to do about working.

 

[CACruisin']

Hi Amy. I definitely understand your ortho woes and job angst. Between DD14, DD12 and DH, I have been making payments to the ortho now every month for the past 3.5 years and there is still one more kiddo to go!

I'm also looking at going back to work part time... but doing what??? I've been home for the past 13 years. My BSEE degree is pretty much outdated at this point .

Good job on not going into full stress binge mode though and getting in a walk

Anna