Twenty-ninth Weigh-in

Another weigh-in under my belt and yet another .8 lbs lost. That's three weeks in a row! I'd say it was a trend, but the last time I said that, the trend changed completely. Regardless, this means I've lost another five pounds AND I've met my mini-goal of reducing my BMI to 29.9! Officially, I am no longer obese. I'm now just "overweight." Hehe, it's funny that I'm so excited about that! This also means it's charm time. I've already ordered one for this latest 5lbs and another for achieving my mini-goal.

The meeting itself was good. We did a little exercise by closing our eyes and imagining a time in our lives that required patience and persistence to overcome. We then imagined the feelings from that time applying to our weight loss efforts. Finally, we replaced the image by seeing ourselves at goal. Like the goofy girl I am, I started smiling at that point :)

After the meeting, I was approached by another member who asked how much I had lost as she didn't quite catch it when I received my star. She then congratulated me on my loss and said that she had been keeping an eye on me and watching me get thinner and thinner. That was super duper awesome. So much so, I really must approach someone else at the meeting and compliment them, too. I'm shy in real life, but this feeling deserves passing along to someone else despite my wallflower-ness!

I'll close with a great quote our leader gave us. It really is true. The great mountain that's ahead of us can be crossed one pebble at a time.

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.” – Unknown

The slippery slope

I haven't been doing the best that I could be doing on Weight Watchers during the last month. I know this because, among other things, I haven't been tracking as carefully as I should be. I've been going on a slow insidious downhill slide. It started around the time my doctor decreased the dosage of my medication for depression. Normally I'm on an even keel, but a change in dosage caused the whole ship to shudder.

When I'm in a funk, it's hard to function. Anyone who's ever battled with depression knows what this is like. In my case, though I wasn't binging, I wasn't caring a whole lot about what was going in my mouth. I gave myself permission to skip eating a few veggies one day. That slipped to two days, and sooner than you can say "I hate beets," a week and a half had passed with a spotty record of meeting the healthy guidelines of fruits, veggies, milk, water, oil, you name it.

Fortunately, the funk passed, but it was replaced by an increase in projects at work. Which left no time for me to indulge in my favourite internet hobby of reading up on all things Weight Watches. Between this and the funk, I've felt rather isolated and like I'm not really following the program despite tracking my points every day.

This brings me to a few realizations. The first, is that if you give yourself permission to slip, you better be sure it doesn't lead to that slippery slope. Or, if you find yourself halfway down that slope, find a rope, tie a knot in it, and hang on. The second, is the importance of connection and community. Taking inspiration from others is not a small thing. It keeps you going and reminds you that you're not alone.

This week for me has been going better. My mood is up and I've recommitted to careful tracking and meeting the healthy guidelines, veggies included. I'm also going to make time to participate in the WW community a bit more. If not in the day, in the evening at least. I do so enjoy reading everyone's blogs and I miss it. Tonight though, it's time for bed. My rope is tied and I'm hanging on. And as they say, tomorrow is a new day.

Crockpotting across the universe

True to my word, I've been crockpotting up a storm for the last week or so. Well, as much of a storm as three crockpot dishes can make. But hey, it's three more dishes than I would usually make with my crockpot during the summer months. So far, all the recipes I've tried have come from Fix It and Forget it Lightly - a low-fat crockpot recipe book. Though I've been finding some recipes are lacking in proper instructions or a certain je ne sais quois, in general, I'm happy with the book as a good starting point for meal ideas.

Here's some mini-reviews of the recipes I've tried:

• Machaca Beef: This recipe gets bonus points just for the name. It's fun to say. Go ahead, say it out loud. Machaca. See? Told you it was fun. Anyways, this is a shredded beef recipe. Whole beef roast, onions, chili peppers, salsa, you get the idea. The result is shredded meat for tacos and taco-like things. We had it with a 1-point WeightWatchers wrap and a tablespoon of fat-free sour cream. It was pretty tasty! I wound up freezing little bundles of it because it made so much.
  
• Turkey Roast: Ground turkey mixed with seasoning and smushed into a loaf at the bottom of the crockpot. If your first thought is "wow, doesn't that paint a pretty picture" you'd be right. It isn't a pretty picture. I wound up adding some dried cranberries and onions to the mix to try and liven it up. The result, though not company-worthy, was a nice enough turkey meatloaf. The cranberries added a Thanksgiving flavour to the dish and were a good addition.
• Italian Chicken Stew: A mostly vegetable and bean soup with a few pieces of chicken thrown in. My husband loved it. I found it a bit too tomato-y. However, that's not the recipe's fault. That was mine. I went with my own combo of tomatoes and beans. If there's a next time with this dish, it'll involve following the directions more and substituting chicken broth instead of water. Imagine, following the directions. Pffft.
  

Of the recipes above, I'd definitely make the Machaca Beef again. If only for the name. Machaca.

Sewing my way to fitness

Today was supposed to be a training day for the half-marathon. An endurance walk of 8k. However, we were unexpectedly accompanied by a five-year-old that a friend had brought along. Before we began the walk, I spent some time looking between the printout of our route and the five-year old. I'd look at the map, look at the five-year-old, and look at the map again.

Call me a softy, but I just didn't have it in me to make the five-year-old walk 8 kilometres. I mean, if she was training to do a half-marathon, I woulda brought out the old whip. But alas, she was more interested in being a kid. So I modified our route to take us straight to a playground. Much fun was had by all. Even when I accidentally ate a medium-sized ice-cream cone. Heehee, oops!

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about the unsung health benefits of sewing. When I came home from the unsuccessful training walk, I went straight to making a basket liner for aforementioned-friend's wedding next week. I didn't even get out of my walking clothes, so, as a consequence, I happened to be wearing my pedometer.

Now, my sewing setup is less than ideal. In fact, it sucks. My serger is on the dining room table, my ironing board is in the kitchen, and my sewing machine is in the bedroom. When I'm working on a project that requires all three, you can bet I do a lot of moving between them. Until this afternoon, I didn't realize just how much moving I did. After finishing the liner, I checked my pedometer and was surprised to find that a couple hours of sewing had racked up over 4,000 steps!

So there you have it, ladies and gents. You can't make a five-year old walk an 8k, but you CAN burn calories while sewing. I bet Bowflex wouldn't want this to get out.

Twenty-eighth Weigh-in

I'm down another .8 lbs today! And would you look at that, I'm actually just over the halfway mark! That's both exciting and daunting at the same time, haha. I'm not quite at my BMI goal yet. Somewhere along the line I miscalculated or forgot what the actual figure was. I need to be 169 lbs even to hop that line. Maybe next week!

I also apologize for my absence this week. Work has been crazy busy and I've had no time to blog or read blogs, or do anything other than spend my days, well, working!

Cucumbers and deerage

There's something to be said for walking. The fresh air, the exercise, the strange things you see along the way. For example, this sign that was posted alongside the trail. We're not sure what it's advertising, aside from the fact that they happen to have well-endowed cucumbers. There was no trailside stand from which we could buy them or any other indication of where said "cukes" were.

There was, however, a profusion of deer growing all over the property. There was at least five of these guys in various stages of munching. Perhaps they ate the cucumbers? The one pictured here was curled up in the grass, cute as could be until she decided we were annoying enough that she'd rather show us her backside.

Our training walks are getting longer now and we're holding up well. When we have good walks like tonight's, it's easy to keep going. We've been going a month now which is hard to believe. I haven't missed a training session either and I'm feeling really good about that. Two more months and it's go time!

Goodies from Goody

I found a great product the other day and finally had a chance to test drive it during my half-marathon training walk this evening. They're called StayPut No Slide headbands and are made by Goody. Indeed, the headbands live up to their name - they stay put and don't slide. I found them comfortable and they didn't tear at my hair or otherwise hurt at all when putting them on or taking them off. They're made out of a stretchy fabric with rubber-esque thread woven through the length of them and come in various colours. I bought mine in a three-pack at London Drugs.

While I was cruising Goody's web site looking for product shots, I stumbled across another goody - a free podcast of workout music. I'm listening to it now and it's pretty groovable. Not necessarily my style, but hey, it's free! You'll need to provide a name and email address to get to the download page so be sure to use any "spam catcher" addresses you might have like yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc.