Week 12

I lost 1.2 pounds at my weigh in!  Onward and upward!

Week 11

I had a pretty good week.  I'm weighing in every other week, so I don't have anything to report poundage wise.  I behaved fairly well this week! lol  Mother's Day, of course, was kind of a food train wreck but I enjoyed it.  It took me another day or so to get back on the wagon completely.

I had a sort of a revelation today.  My life is NOT a contest.  Oh, I know that I'm in this weight loss challenge and I do want to lose weight but you know what?  Speed is truly not the goal here.  I go back to week one and look and yep, the goal is to feel better.  Do I?  Well, I've struggled with some depression but that's my life.  I have good days and bad days still but overall, I DO feel better so far.  Go me!  My lungs are clearer.  I no longer cough!  I remember as a teenager being able to find my Mom in any store by the sound of her cough.  I can happily say today, that my teenager could NOT track me down that way.  Go me!  So what's the point?  The point is, this is about changing my life for the better.   It's not a contest.  As a matter of fact, I've lost weight fast so many times that it pains me to think about it.  So...

Here's what I've done.  I went back to my MFP settings and I set it to lose ONE pound per week.  One, you say?  Well, that's 52 pounds per year, is it not?  That is 104 pounds in two years and heck, if I lost that much weight, Keith might go into mourning. LOL  Not really girls, I promise.  He's along for the ride no matter how much weight I want to lose.  Anyway, you know what the best thing about it is?  I can live with it!!  Did you hear that?  I can LIVE with it.  It's enough food allowed that I do not think I'll feel deprived.  It's enough food allowance that I can have that second potato occasionally at supper or extra pat of butter.  It's enough food that I can feel like I'm not dieting, just... wait for it... LIVING.  :)  Onward and upward!

Week 10

I had weigh in last night and I was down 4.7 pounds!  I am pleased with that and still liking MFP.  I was not a perfect dieter but I had more good days than bad and that is the goal for now.  Onward and upward!

Week 9

I recovered from my weigh in! LOL  I have a plan for the weight loss challenge.  I'm using Myfitnesspal.  It's a great website.  It's easy to use, keeps track of my intake and has an enormous database of food.  It's the easiest calorie tracking system I've ever used and let me tell you, I've used a few. :)  The best thing is, it's free!  I did good this week getting that up and running.  I've had a bobble here or there but overall, I'd say my calorie intake this week is much, much lower.  As a result, physically, I do feel better.  My mental health?  We'll see. 

So... sort of new plan.  I am going to add things here and there but from now til august, I'll probably just talk about how the weight loss competition is going.  I don't weigh in again until next Tuesday, so I'll report any losses then.  Onward and upward
Melissa

Week 8 Start again

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, I know.  I am battling depression, a familiar companion.  I'm still not smoking.  My new thing for this week is that I joined a team in a weight loss competition that runs from May 1 through August 1.  I did my weigh in last night for my start weight.  You ever feel like life is just trying to screw with you??  Yeah... I lost 70 pounds back in 2005/2006.  As of my weigh in last night, I've gained it all back... plus 2!  Way to help with the depression! lol  Oh well, I may as well laugh.  Crying doesn't help(besides, I did that last night.)  So for this week, I want to get my plan organized and in place for how I'm gonna kick butt in this competition!  Onward and upward!

Week 7

FAIL.  Nuff said? lol  Good news, I'm still not smoking cigarettes.  Everything else... yeah.

Week 6

This week went fine.  I added water daily.  It caused a few extra trips to the ladies room here and there and after the morning headaches subsided, I do think I feel better for it.  Anyway, my skin seems clearer!  Big news is, Keith was up for three days this weekend and, as you know, Keith smokes.  Now, he would have been more than willing to not smoke around me but I wanted to know if I could handle it.  I handled it fine!  There was a wistful feeling here and there but overall, I did not WANT a cigarette.  I will admit that over the weekend, I kind of sucked at my other new habits but as I've said before, the only vital thing right now is avoid the run to the store for the purchase of a pack of Marlboro 100's.  lol  I'm still a bit down in the dumps overall but I hope that side affect of quitting will pass soon.

Okay... next week.  I think my thing to feel better will involve movement.  Once again, I don't want to push myself too much until I'm well and truly over the cigarettes but movement shouldn't be toooo much of an issue. lol  For this week, I will move for at least 20 minutes on three occasions.  Onward and upward!

Week 5

Week five was pretty low key.  I was successful.  The highlight was finding out that my favorite coffee creamer is HFCS free!  woot!  Am I going to keep this change?  Yes, it's fairly easy and healthy for all of us. 

I'm still missing my cigarettes, I think.  I'm sort of  just... down a bit.  It's like I gave up a fun thing and haven't found another fun thing to replace it with. lol  So, I'm going to stay low key for week six, I think.

Week six will be, add water.  I normally drink two big jugs of diet coke at work during the day.  I will be replacing one of them with water.  The goal is to eventually give up the diet coke but that's a BIG change for a week when I have big courage. lol  Onward and upward!

Week 4

Well... how did I do with the sugar thing?  I did okay... until that trip to Dairy Queen on Sunday! lol  Oh well, if the overall result is that I limit myself to one treat per week, I can be happy with that!  I'm on my third week of no smoking and truthfully, just the fact that I've stuck with that makes me happier than anything!  Am I going to keep this change?  Yes, as a diabetic, anything else would be kind of silly.  I will say that I do not expect perfection from myself on any of the changes(except smoking! lol) So, a treat here or there may happen.

Which brings me to this week.  I am going to take it a bit easy on myself this week.  I feel like the no smoking thing is still a huge, big deal right now and I don't want to take another big thing away until I feel steady on my feet with that.  So, this week, my change will involve high fructose corn syrup.  I've read the studies and I am convinced that I, as well as my family, would be better off without it.  I have no intention of tossing things that are already in my pantry but I'm going to spend this week checking labels and avoiding HFCS. Onward and upward!

Week 3

I did it!  I cannot believe that I did it but I did!!  As of today, I am nine days without an actual cigarette.  I still want them but the ecig does take the edge off.  Am I going to keep this change?  YES!  My hope is to cut back on the amount of nicotene in the ecigs until I get to zero but I'm not in a huge hurry.  For how, I'm very much enjoying the freedom I feel right now.  WOOT!

Okay, next week.  My plan is to cut out sweets.  No brainer with the diabetes but truth is, I have developed a bad dessert habit over the last six months or so.  So, the only sweet things I'll be eating this week are fruits.  Onward and upward. :)

Week 2

Week 2 is... well, let's go back to week one first.  My healthy habit for week one was to eat fruit and/or veggies with every meal.  I mostly succeeded and what amazed me was how much difference this one thing made in how I feel.  Um... things that had been um, well infrequent became quite um... regular!  My blood sugars came down.  That one surprised me since I made no other dietary changes.  It was a fairly easy change.  I do think I'll keep it.

Okay... week 2.  The week of the e cig.  It's been around one day since I started using them.  They're not cigarettes, but this is the longest I've gone without a cigarette, so there's something to it!  This week both excites me and scares me.  If I succeed, this could truly be one of the biggest changes for the good of me that I make.  Wish me luck!

Week 1

 I'll start at the beginning.  I woke up on my 47th Birthday.  For many reasons, I considered myself ahead of the game in that moment and came up with a marvelous idea. (to me anyway)  I have decided that year 47 is going to be pivotal for me.  I've played the diet game my whole life and I've won... then lost... then won... if you've played the game, you know what I mean.  It's always been some huge race for me, big pressure, counting this, measuring that, doing this much and that much... well, again, if you've played the game, you know.  For the first time in my life, I see a ribbon stretching before me.  All of the years I have in front of me and for me, the big question is, how do I want to feel?  Do I want to feel good or bad?  That's the bottom line.  I've decided that I want... hell, I deserve to feel good.  So that's what this year is about.

I decided to start a blog because, although I've never been a diary keeper, I do want a diary of this year.  I want to keep track of all the changes and the feelings, challenges and victories that occur with them.  

My scheme is simple.  Once a week, for one week, I will make a change in my life that I feel will result in me feeling better in some way.  Each week, I'll announce the change for that week.  I'll discuss the prior week's change, how successful it was, if it made me feel good, how difficult it was and if I want to make it a permanent change.  Easy peasy, right?  We will see. lol  Okay, now on to week one!

Week one, the change I'm making is to add fruits and/or veggies to every single meal. This report will be brief because it's the first one.  My hope is that by week 52, my report will be very long and very full of feeling good!