Twenty-seventh weigh-in

I'm down .8 lbs this week. I'm so close to moving into another set of numbers! Not to mention, my BMI is very close to my mini-goal of 29.9. I'm at 30.1 right now and can taste it!

The meeting today was about my favourite topic - food. Thought-provoking topics are great and all, but it's nice to have "fun" topics every so often. We discussed ways of making restaurant foods at home. For example, pizza, Chinese food, Mexican food and so on. I've got some great new ideas on toppings for homemade pizza (Yves pepperoni, light feta, green/red peppers, fresh basil, ground turkey, grilled chicken, and shrimp/prawns) as well as a renewed desire to start using my crockpot more.

Normally, I reserve crockpot cooking for the fall and winter, but one lady said she uses hers all year round, in the summertime especially as a crockpot heats your house up a lot less. What a great idea! So I'm going to sit down now and go through Fix It and Forget It Lightly and pick some recipes for this week.

I'll close with a great quote I picked up from one of the meeting members a few weeks back:

Many a mickle makes a muckle" - Scottish Proverb

That is to say, every little bit helps!

Bad day yesterday

I've been feeling rather crummy the last few days. Tired, sore throat, and just generally depressed. It culminated last night in a binge on the tastiest low-fat thing I've had to date: French Twists made by Barry's Bakery. I'd post a picture of them here, but it'll make me want more!

Anyways, I ate pretty much the whole bag and now I have a sugar hangover this morning. Joy. What a way to make myself feel better. Not! But I sucked it up, tracked them in my journal and fortunately I haven't blown my weekly allowance yet.

It was a near thing, but obviously I can't have these things in the house. At 1 point each, one at a time is okay, but not the whole bag >_<

Nifty site: SparkPeople

Every so often, a website called SparkPeople will be mentioned over on the WW boards. I finally checked it out yesterday and I like what I see. It's a diet site to be sure, but it's completely free and looks like a lot of fun.

It has the basic tools like calorie intake calculation and a customizable food tracker. But where the really nifty part comes in is the fitness tracker. You can create your own strength training routine by selecting from a long list of exercises designed to strengthen your core, upper body, or lower body. Just keep clicking on the exercises you want to try, and it adds it to your routine for the day. It will also tell you how many sets and repetitions are needed for each exercise. Unsure of how to perform a certain exercise? There's demos of everything. And as near as I can tell, you don't need any special equipment aside from dumbbells, stretching bands, and an exercise ball. If you don't have all of those, you can set your preferences to indicate which of these you do have and it'll only show you exercises you can perform using the equipment you happen to have on hand.

The other tool that I'm excited about is their recipe section. Like Recipezaar and similar sites, it has user-submitted recipes, as well as reviews. However, the recipes at SparkPeople are geared towards the healthy crowd so you're not wading through scads of recipes looking for something that might fit your points allowance. There's nutritional info, too, but like anything user-submitted, be sure to recalculate it yourself.

There's a lot of other fun tools on SparkPeople like being able to join teams that may have similar goals. During the account-creation process, the site will suggest teams that may fit the goals you've entered. You can choose to join the teams right then or wait until you've had a chance to check them out. Each team has their own message board on which you can participate. Speaking of message boards, there's also a public message board system with private messaging and the ability to add pictures to your profile and signature. And lastly, there's something called SparkPoints which you earn by accomplishing certain things every day or by taking one-time challenges. I'm not entirely sure what they're there for (you can't exchange them for physical prizes) but they seem fun enough to try and earn some as a no-cost reward system.

All that said, I wouldn't jump ship entirely from eTools to SparkPeople. Each is designed for a specific need. My need happens to be counting points. However, I see sites like SparkPeople as an additional resource which may help with my journey. Plus, I like fun gadgets whether they be online or in the real world.

Check it out if you have a spare few minutes, there's bound to be something there to help you with your goal!

Shopping on the “Other” Side

It is true when they say the grass is always greener on the other side. I never expected it to apply to clothes shopping as well. Over the last week or so, I've been wandering into regular-size stores like a lost lamb. Shopping feels different and not in a good way. Instead of seeing sizes that are too large for me, I'm now confronted with size fours, zeros and even double-zeros. Who the heck can fit in a double-zero anyways???

At the beginning of my forays into the other side, I felt like a stranger in a strange land. Too skinny clothing and commission sales associates. I had forgotten about those, sales associates that is. I know they're trying to do their job, but I like to be left alone and only get help when asked. I knew I was in foreign territory when I stepped out of a change room to show my husband a so-so outfit when a perky girl popped up and exclaimed I looked "darling." Gah!

The unexpected emotions that come with shopping in regular size stores also dogged my footsteps. I started imagining that I really ought not to be there, especially when one store's "Large" would only fit a six-year old. I even wandered back into the plus-size sections and Addition Elle, seeking the comfort of the known. But even then I felt like an outsider. It was like I was in limbo. A specter doomed to exist between the two worlds.

However, with a number of shopping excursions under my belt, I'm slowly becoming acclimatized. I'm pickier about the places I wander into and have been mainly sticking to stores that carry both plus-size and regular size. Though I'm not technically a plus-size anymore, I just like the comfort that section brings to me and will wander through it when I'm feeling overwhelmed. My soul refreshed, I'll invariably return to the other side which, for some reason, always looks a bit greener.

Twenty-sixth Weigh-in

I think whatever it was that caused my big gain two weeks ago has finally left. I'm down 2.8 lbs this week. I wore the same clothes as last time and everything. The only thing different I did this week was made a conscious effort not to eat anything super salty the day before. My leader said last week that salty foods like sushi can cause water retention. Whoops. I love sushi and my husband and I tend to have it on Friday nights as a treat. I mean, I knew about salt and water retention but never equated sushi with being overly salty.

On another note, many thanks to all of you who've visited in the last few days and left such wonderful comments. They really mean a lot to me and your encouragement is much appreciated. Though the internet can be a scary place, y'all certainly make it warm and fuzzy :)

Six months

Today is a special day. Six months ago, I plucked up the courage and walked through the door of my local Weight Watchers. Shortly thereafter I picked up the March/April issue of the Weight Watchers magazine. In the issue was an article about how to make changes stick. I read it, and re-read it, and never forgot one of the "secrets" the article revealed: patience.

It said the average amount of time people would stick with something before going back to their previous habits was 3 to 6 months. But, after 6 months, they were more apt to stick with it. I did as the article suggested and promised to myself that I'd make it to 6 months.

I kept that promise and today I hardly recognize myself. I feel fitter, I look better, and I'm prouder. It was a hard promise to keep and I often had my doubts, but it got easier and more of a habit as time went on. Which is what, I suppose, the article was saying. Stick with it long enough and you'll do it by rote.

Though I was going to post a generic inspirational image to mark this day, I thought it more fitting to post another set of progress pics to illustrated just how far 6 months can take you. Here's to another six months. I've stuck to it until now, and I'll stick to it through to goal.

Left: Christmas 2006, 204 lbs
Right: August 2007, 173 lbs
(and yes, that's a Wii controller in my hand)

Goodbye Penningtons

I had always thought that when this day came, it'd be much more momentous. That I'd walk into Penningtons, try on an "X" and find it too loose. I'd shed a tear of happiness and perhaps sadness before bidding adieu to my faithful plus-size store and galloping off to a smaller-size store in the peachy glow of sunset.

Instead, this day came quietly as I was researching clothing conversion charts. I had been trying on clothes at the Bay this evening, trying to find suitable clothes for a wedding when I started getting curious as to how letter sizes translated to number sizes. I went home, fired up the internet and found myself a conversion chart.

The "large" shirt I tried on was a size 12. The skirt I tried on was also a size 12. Both fit perfectly. And, as I was contemplating the conversion chart, two realizations hit. I used to be a size 20 and Penningtons only carries 14+.

This means I no longer have to shop at Penningtons. Or Addition Elle. Or the "Above Average" section of department stores. Or any other "Women's" sections for that matter.

I used to say that I hated shopping at Penningtons and the like. But now that I'm officially into new clothing territory, I can't help but think with fondness and gratitude that there are stores like Penningtons. Being able to find nice clothes in my size meant a world to me though I felt shameful to admit it.

So, farewell Penningtons. May you prosper and may you always help women feel good about themselves.