The Trifecta -- Weeks Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven and Thirty-Eight

Ugh....where to begin......hmmmm....perhaps at the beginning?

These past few weeks have been immensely difficult for me for a number of reasons.  One:  There's been some serious juju at work.  Two:  My dear husband has been traveling a LOT out of town.  While I'm certainly of sturdy enough stock to handle that little bit of change, it has been an adjustment.  Three:  I've just been plain frustrated.  Frustrated as hell and irritated.  All of these combined, do not make for happy weight loss.  Especially, when you add in that I wasn't sleeping well at all (maybe 4 hours of good sleep a night), it's just one hot mess.  Week 36 saw an oh-so-fun 2.2 pound gain; if that wasn't good enough, Week 37 saw a 0.8 pound gain.  Thankfully, Week 38 brought a nice, cool 2.0 pound loss.  Still, I wasn't doing any sort of happy dance at the scale.  I'm just pissed and angry at myself for the stupid 3 pound gain over this past few weeks.....wait, no......3.6 pound gain over the past month.  Total b.s. in my book.  And for what?  Nothing.

All I have to say is that stress can bite my lily-white butt.  I don't like it, and the scale REALLY doesn't like it.  If stress had a corporeal form, I'd drop kick it.  I've been trying hard to make sure I get plenty of sleep each night, and for those nights where I have trouble, I've been taking these melatonin supplements that I got at Trader Joes.  They have seemed to help a bit....just reset my sleep rhythm a tiny bit.  I've also been making sure I get plenty of hydration throughout the day.  I know that when I'm dehydrated I get the munchies....and obviously that's not good for weight loss.

So here's hoping that Week 39 has much better results.  I need some happy news.

Week Thirty-Five

I know this is super late as far as posting, but I did go up slightly this week; I went up 0.6 pounds.  Lesson learned:  Do NOT eat burritos on Friday before you weigh in.  Enough said.

But darned if that burrito wasn't tasty as heck.  :o)

Week Thirty-Four

Down 1.6 pounds!

After maintaining the weight for the past two weeks, there has finally been a change....and for the better!  The hot weather we recently had was not incredibly helpful to me since all I wanted to do was eat cold/cool things like ice cream.  Yeah, not so hot (pardon the pun) for someone trying to drop some nasty weight.  So, when I went grocery shopping I thought I'd try to find some snacks that would help satisfy me.  One day when I had just been hungry, I had gone up front to the mailroom and I thought I'd stop off and see if there was "something" I could get at the little snack shack.  I happened upon some string cheese and thought "what the hell....why not?"  It's cold, it's something of the dairy persuasion so it's got protein, and it's got a hint of saltiness which would hit that salty snack craving I was having.  Wouldn't you know it?  That bit of string cheese really worked.  Guess I should have listened to my inner 5 year old sooner.

I was also starting to get roped in by the siren song of the vending machine with all of it's glorious Hostess snack cakes.  Uh oh.  A friend of mine had introduced me to Cinnamon Cheerios (really, I SHOULD have listened to my inner 5 year old) and darned if they weren't just super tasty and satisfying as well when you NEED something sweet.  So, in the same shopping trip, I bought a box of those Cheerios.  I've cleaned out the entire box, but those silly Cheerios really helped me stave off some not-so-nice sweet attacks.

I will cop to this though, I do have a special container for those Cheerios.  I have a Goldfish plastic container that you are supposed to put fishy crackers in.  Yeah.  I rock the Cheerios in that thing.  If nothing else, I'm losing weight and making my coworkers smile at my inner 5 year old.

Weeks Thirty-Two & Thirty-Three

Well, nothing new to report.  I've maintained for the past two weeks.

There's been a lot going on at the house, and I'm actually surprised that I didn't gain anything.  Granted, I'd rather be losing weight, but at the same time, at least it's not that super-annoying up and down, up and down stuff that just makes you lose hope.  I know plateaus are sort of "built in" the whole weight loss journey, so I'm just kind of rolling with it.  I did have a really awesome loss prior to this 2 week "Hold fast and don't budge" dealie-o.  Usually when I have an awesome loss, I have a not so awesome gain the next week. 

Week Thirty-One

WOOHOO!!!!!  Down 2.8 pounds!!!!!

If I had stayed for the meeting on Saturday, you better believe I would have been celebrating!  This brings the total weight loss, to date, to the grand total of 36.4 pounds.  I finally cracked the "35 pound loss" floor that I had been dancing around for weeks (it seemed).

I really wish I knew what exactly it was that brought on that loss.  I've been trying to figure it out.  I've been making sure that I stay hydrated and I take my vitamins.  Other than that, I'm not sure if the recent warmer weather played a part or if it's just that my body decided that it was okay to shed a few extra pounds.  I'm kinda leaning toward that explanation.  Nothing's really moved much the past few weeks, to my frustration, and then all of a sudden......BAM!  I've just been staying the course:  drinking water, eating my daily points "ration", keeping indulgences down to a dull roar, and making sure I exercise regularly.

I guess that's the thing to take away from this:  "stay the course".  It's really easy to get all frustrated with a lack of results (or the wishy washy ups and downs on the scale) and abandon what you know will eventually work for you.  I think it's really easy for us to get annoyed and lose faith with things that may take some time to take effect, and I think we tend to get irritated with ourselves when our bodies don't want to do something when WE think they should. 

Week Thirty

I did it again......forgot to post on the weekend after weigh-in.  I've been busy working on projects for Christmas presents on the weekends, and I've not really been getting on the computer much.

I went up this week a whole 0.6 pounds.  I'm not overly thrilled with the gain, but Chris and I did have mexican food for dinner on Friday and I'm sure the extra sodium didn't help me any.  For my part, I did try to make sure I drank a little extra water to help flush it out of my system, but it is what it is.  All I have to say is that at least my dinner was darn tasty and I enjoyed every bite!  That's the way a restaurant meal should be....something to savor and truly enjoy.  Believe me, I did!!!!

Since it seems like the weather is warming up again, I bought one of those reusable hard plastic cups with the straw so that I can be sure I'm drinking enough water at home.  I have gotten so much use out of that thing this past weekend, it isn't even funny.  I think the cup is 24 ozs. and I usually fill that thing up twice a day, and sometimes 3 times a day when it's a little warmer.  It seems like I tend to drink more water when I'm drinking it through a straw.  I also like the fact that the cup is reusable and sturdy as hell.  I had been reusing a Starbucks cup that I got iced coffee in about a month ago, and that promptly went in the recycle bin on Sunday.

Week Twenty-Nine

In my excitement, I completely forgot to post this weekend after weighing in.  I'm down 3 glorious pounds!!!!!!

I'm really not sure what contributed to the weight loss.  I didn't do anything different and I sure as heck ate when I was hungry.  I did make a point to drink plenty of water since it was rather warm and I wanted to make sure I was properly hydrated.  I get kinda gnarly headaches when I'm dehydrated and they're not particularly fun, especially when you're at work trying to concentrate.  (I'm sure sitting in an air conditioned office doesn't help with staying hydrated either.)

One thing that I was really proud of was Friday.  One of the managers was going to buy lunch for the small group of us in the office, and he was buying lunch from BJ's.  Whoa....pizza, pasta and more....what to do?  So, I checked the menu and I remembered that one time I had ordered these Thai Lettuce Wrap things and they were pretty tasty.  So, I went ahead and ordered them figuring they couldn't be all that bad and they were about the normal volume of food I eat at lunch normally.  Unfortunately, BJ's doesn't really have any nutrition info online, so I was at a loss for points calculation.  So, I figured I would just enjoy them, hope for the best, but have a normal dinner just in case.  I was able to find nutrition info online at another website for BJ's...and.....drumroll please.....with the help of the online points calculator, all 4 lettuce wraps cost me..............wait for it................................5 points.  SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was so happy that I was able to have lunch out, and still enjoy going out to eat with my husband that evening.