1 Month Follow-up to "Putting it out there..."

A few days late, but better late than never I say!  I did weigh myself on the correct day (June 27th) just to give myself an accurate reading.  Sadly, I only lost 2 pounds...1 pound short of my 3 pound goal.  Without sounding like I'm making excuses, because I don't want to be that kind of person pushing blame onto other things, it was a busy month full of a lot of eating "out" (ie: be it restaurants or other peoples homes, parties, etc).  I need to have better restraint in these types of situations.  I am allowing myself one reasonable cheat day a week and I think that's fair, otherwise, I just really need to focus on making healthier choices.

One thing that I've been doing is tracking pretty much everything I've been eating and drinking on Sparkpeople.com.  If you're looking to lose a few pounds and need to see things in black and white, sign up!  It's free to join and easy to follow.  I use it strictly to track my calories and water intake and it helps a ton to see it everyday and know where I succeeded (did I get enough protein?) or failed (did I go over my "fat" goal?). 

I am pretty proud of myself, though, for really sticking to my goal of upping my water intake.  I've read that you should be drinking half your body weight in ounces of water per day, and then for every caffeinated and alcoholic beverage you consume you need to drink an equal amount of water (in addition to your "regular" intake amount).  While I haven't always stuck to that rule of drinking additional ounces to counteract the caffeine or alcohol, I have been drinking my required ounces and that's a huge step for me.

I've been exercising, but not nearly as much as I should be.  Again, I really need to push myself and get into a routine.  It is getting easier though to want to go for a power walk in the evening... daylight until at least 8:30pm and lackluster Summer television help ;)

Overall, I'm ok with only losing 2 pounds, but really wanted to lose more.  Baby steps.  Hopefully month 2 will bring me better results!

Putting it out there...

It's gone from unseasonably cold temps to hot-as-hell temps in the matter of a few days.  Yesterday we got above 90 and I was miserable.  Too hot too soon!  Give me 80 and sunny with a slight breeze and I'm a happy camper.  Sweltering heat, high humidity and zero air movement does not make me a happy girl.  At any rate, the warmer temps obviously require a change in wardrobe, which I will admit that most of my Spring/Summer wardrobe is still packed away in storage boxes at the top of my closet.  I've been putting it off.  Going through all the clothes I haven't had on my body in about a year is not going to be fun, it's not going to be pretty, and it's probably going to produce a few tears.  Bottom line: I've gained weight. 

We keep a small notebook on our scale and everytime we weigh ourselves we jot down the date and our weight.  We don't do it on any sort of time frame, just when the mood strikes.  We do however try to stick to the same time of day: morning.  Today I got on, closed my eyes, said a quick prayer, then opened them to see an ugly number staring back at me.  How did this happen?  Well, I can tell you how it happened...too many sweets and snacks.  I also think another factor was my husband being unemployed for a year.  No, I'm not looking for excuses, I'm just keeping it real.  We used food for comfort.  We didn't "do" much as far as activities just because we didn't have the extra cash to spend...so most times we'd stay home, which led to being bored, which then led to snacking.  Yes, we could have done free activities like biking, walking, hiking, etc., but to be honest I think we were both dealing with a bit of depression (my husband more than myself) which really didn't help to motivate us.  It made us crave wanting to be home and comfortable.  At the time we just did what we wanted to do to keep a balance of sanity.  Obviously, in hind sight, getting "out there" probably would have been the better thing to do.  It would have pushed those depressing thoughts away and definitely would have helped our waistlines.  Now that the hubster is back to work (yesterday marked his one month anniversary!  whoo hoo!) and morale is a bit higher...AND we're hoping to actually take a vacation late this Summer...we need to tackle this problem.

So today I weighed myself and wrote it down.  Today I'm making a vow to really do it this time.  I'm going to eat better and exercise more...or I should say we.  WE are going to eat better and exercise more.  My handy-dandy weight notebook tells me I was 10 lbs. lighter on May 24th of 2008.  That is my goal, to get back to that weight.  No, I'm not going to admit to everyone out there in blogland exactly what the number is, I just know that for me it's a good weight for me to be at.  Some may be saying, "10 lbs.?!  That's not horrible over the span of two years."  For me, it is.  I'm barely 5 foot tall, even an extra 5 lbs. is too much on my frame...10 is just taking it to a whole new level. 

If I can lose 3 lbs. per month I can meet my goal by the time we head to the beach.  That's do-able.  It's all about watching my calories, upping my water in-take, and being more active.  I CAN do this.  I WILL do this.  Blogland, hold me to it.

I will update in one month :)

Rainy Days and Mondays...

...always get me down.  Do you hear that Carpenters' song playing in your head?  Ok, so it's not really a rainy day here in my neck of the woods, but it's still gloomy and gray out.  Not very motivating combined with the fact that it IS Monday and the beginning of what is shaping up to be a really long week.  Here's hoping it gets better!

I do want to take a moment to rave about a product I've been using for a while now and I just love, love, love it...definitely one of those "products I can't live without".  It's called True Lemon, crystallized lemon.

Supposedly there are lots of different ways to use this, but I use it one way and one way only, to flavor my water.  I was never a big water drinker until a few years ago, but even then I would hit a wall trying to meet my "quota" for the day and would often resort to those powders you could add to give it flavor.  Usually they were sugar-y and too sweet and honestly weren't very natural, which to me kind of defeated the purpose of drinking water.  I would at times pick up a few lemons at the grocery store to slice and use in my water, but throughout the year during certain seasons they can be pretty expensive, and overall it was a pain in the butt making sure I had fresh lemon wedges at the ready...they also weren't very convienient for "on the go".  I first saw this True Lemon advertised in a magazine and then found it at my local grocery store (usually found by the sugar/sweetners, but I've heard they can be found by the other powdered drink mixes as well) - I was instantly in love!  It truly does taste like real lemon (it is 100% natural), no yucky aftertaste at all, I promise.  So easy to toss a few packets in my purse to add to my bottled water while I'm out and about, or add it to my glass at restaurants.  One packet to a regular sized bottled water or tall glass at a restaurant is all you need to get a nice lemon flavor :)  The company also makes True Orange and True Lime, but I have yet to see either in person, nor do I think I'd even be interested, I much prefer lemon flavor over orange or lime.  The last time I went to stock up I had to search a bit more and ended up going to a grocery store I don't usually shop at just to get it.  No clue why my usual grocery store stopped carrying it...something I do need to ask about!  But you can do a little search on their website to find where it is available closest to you (and while you're there you can sign up for free samples and print out a coupon too).  I honestly reach for water more now because of this product, awesome!