Category Archives: Holidays

Quick Update

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My Mom is here through tomorrow, and I am really looking forward to get back on track and start counting my points again! I’ve ordered a few things from WW online, including a couple of 2010 food journals (I tend to do better hand writing things instead of online) and did quick shipping so they will be here by NYE. I am only up 0.4 this morning since I have decided to take a break from counting and focus more on maintaining to get through the holidays.

Big news coming tomorrow 12/28, so be sure to stop back by!!!

Hey there treadmill it was so nice to see you…

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So, I didn’t make it to the treadmill last night.  I KNEW I should have walked yesterday morning :(   I had a few dishes and cookies to make for today’s potluck at work and had dinner to cook.  By the time all of that was done it was 9:30 and I was b-e-a-t beat.  I did however remember to properly set the alarm clock last night, so I was walking at 5:30 this morning!  Feels great to already have the walk out-of-the-way.

What I don’t understand is that even though I lay out all of my clothes, have my shoes ON my treadmill, water bottled filled and also on the treadmill, it still takes me 10 minutes from wake up to walking.  Seriously, I should be able to go straight from bed to dressed to walking, but no.  Things distract me.  The dog….he’s adorable and needs attention, the dishes that Fireman maybe forgot to put in the dishwasher, ohhhhhhhh I need to get my breakfast out, etc.  So many distractions!  If I could avoid the distractions, I could have 5 more minutes of sweet warm blissful sleep!

Today is going to be a bit of a food challenge.  Let’s face it, what isn’t a food challenge this time of year?  Today is the company holiday potluck lunch (not to be confused with the holiday company party, or the company holiday happy hour.)  So I brought in vegetarian stuffed shells (we have a lot of vegetarians and a lot of people who do not eat beef due to religious beliefs,) and chocolate chip cookies.  Yeah I probably should have volunteered salad, but that was already on the list!  Hopefully the salad people pull through so that I can at least have some veggies on my plate!

The rest of this week looks like it will be smooth sailing regarding food.  My next hectic holiday sort of day is Saturday…and Sunday!

Exactly 10 days until Christmas!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

PS-Over the past few days I’ve been able to get ALL 2009 posts tagged and categorized.  Seriously what a tedious task.  It’s hard to keep the number of categories in check.  I think I have all of the recipes tagged now, so you can get to them either via the tab up top that says “Recipes” or via the Category “Recipes” on the right tool bar.

Weekend Recap

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Wow what a weekend.  I feel like I need a vacation to recover from it!  Saturday was a birthday party luncheon for one of my girlfriends.  Food was pretty much good all day except for the actual lunch itself (damn you chips and salsa!)  Saturday afternoon I was supposed to meet Fireman at the mall, but the traffic was so horrendous around the mall, that I wound up just meeting them back at home.  Sunday was a yucky rainy day, but I had a great time with my girlfriends down in Richmond.  We had brunch.  Food was pretty good all day until dinner.  Chinese food.  My plate consisted of brown things that were fried.  Not a great way to work at NOT gaining any weight through the holidays, that is for sure.  I had an awful headache, the sodium didn’t help get rid of it :(

The weekend was great, the food was ehhh mediocre, but it’s Monday, so it’s back to the normal grind.  I made a huge batch of Taco Soup (which you’ll eventually see on the recipes page once I get through the HUGE task of tagging all of my posts!)  I will be packing my lunch everyday this week, which is easily one of the biggest things that I can do to help keep my weight in check throughout the holidays.  I had planned on getting up at 5:20 to walk on the treadmill, I was all prepared, clothes laid out, shoes ready, water bottle filled; alarm clock set for usual 6:15 wake up time.  Great. So close to getting the walking done before work, but no dice.  I will walk after work today before dinner.  I’ve learned that if I wait until after dinner to walk, I’m just not as likely to do it.

I hope that everyone had a great weekend!  For me, only 6 more working days until vacation time!   My Mom is coming into town, between Christmas and Wedding things, we have a lot to do!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Small Miracle

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I woke up at 5:30am this morning to walk on the treadmill. Seriously, that might just be a miracle. I haven’t been very consistent about doing any extra walks other than the usual 2 miles a day that my dog gets, since the Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving Day. I’ve randomly walked, but more because the treadmill was giving me the evil stare (aka guilt) than anything else. Yesterday, while I was thinking about my goal of just not gaining anymore weight during the holidays, I decided I need to burn a couple of hundred extra calories at least 4 or 5 days a week. Anything to curb the weight gain I suppose.

I have too many events going on in the evenings, so I figured morning times would be the best. I laid out my clothes last night, slept in the shirt that I was going to walk in, set the shoes on the treadmill and filled my water bottle. Sure I wanted to kill my alarm clock for thinking it was OK to go off at 5:20 in the morning, but you bet you’re bootie I was walking by 5:30. At first it was a little suckie, but it got better, and WOW does TV suck at 5:30 in the morning. At the end I thought “holy crap, its 6am and I’ve already exercised!” Besides trying to curb weight gain, I also need to start to prepare myself for the Reindeer 5k on 12/19, which is just a week and a half away. If I have any chance of beating my last time, I’m going to need to start walking more!

I am weighing myself everyday; just to keep an eye on the scale to ensure that the weight doesn’t creep up without me looking. For some people daily weighing isn’t best, but for me, Id rather just face the reality each morning.

I am one person’s gifts and stocking stuffers away from being done with my holiday shopping. I’ll admit, I just started yesterday, but online shopping is so easy, especially with all of the free shipping deals that are out there! Fireman just needs to get his act together and let me know what it is that he wants, so that he has something under the tree!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

PS-How AMAZING did everyone look on The Biggest Loser last night!!!

Up, Up & Away?

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I’ll go ahead and get it over with. The scale was up again today, but this time only by 0.6. Seriously, I think my goal for the rest of the year is to just quit gaining weight. Between Fireman’s holiday party, the snow day eating (I’ll explain that in a bit), and the Redskins Game tailgating I figure up 0.6 not to shabby! This week will be even worse. My company’s holiday party on Thursday, dinner on Wednesday with another couple before we go to see Trans Siberian Orchestra, future step daughters birthday party at our house on Saturday (her big party is the following weekend!) lunch in Richmond on Sunday with one group of my girlfriends, dinner on Sunday with another group of my girlfriends. Seriously, there just aren’t enough flex points in a day to get through all of these things. My hope is to be able to exercise enough on most days of the week and stick to my points with lots of fruits and veggies whenever possible. Bigger goal, DO NOT GAIN.

So my Countdown to Christmas Goal has changed to just that, do not gain between now and Christmas. Seriously, THAT would be a Christmas Miracle lol. This time of the year is just so busy with things going on. Next week it becomes even busier than this week, yowzas.

So about the eating and snow I mentioned previously. There is just something about a lazy day with snow piling up outside that says to me “make something warm and hearty and watch movies!” My Mom would always stay home from work with us on snow days and make wonderfully yummy warm foods like beef burgundy, homemade French bread, cookies, etc. Back then we’d play out in the snow all day long so the food didn’t pack on the pounds. For those of you not in the DC area, the 4” or so of snow that we received would have shut schools down for two days had it happened during the week AND the grocery stores would have been out of milk, bread and toilet paper (yeah, seriously.) Fireman and I headed off to the grocery store, because we were legitimately out of milk. I told him we’d pick up some movies and snacks at the grocery store and I’d make a big warm dinner. I made a healthier version of Lasagna, served it with a side salad and glass of wine (um and garlic bread yikes.) It was delicious, but the portion I cut for myself was HUGE.

Sunday at the football game I probably got more points in from drinking that I did from food, but still neither food nor drink were great. I didn’t track points.

Overall my weekend was amazing, sure the food wasn’t great, but it was just so much fun. I’m looking forward to the next few weeks and all of the fun things that are planned. Now I just need to not gain weight!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Christmas Tree

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Per a few requests, here is a picture of our tree. We go with a real one each year. We take a trip to a tree farm and go and pick one down to cut down. The house smells like a tree, it’s awesome! We are also still in the process of collecting ornaments, so the tree is fairly basic, but I love it!

Sammie dog says Happy Holidays!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Ya’ll are AWESOME!

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The scale was down 1.2 this morning, so hopefully the 3.2 that I gained from last week will be gone quickly! I love how it takes 3 days to gain 3 pounds, but 2 or 3 weeks to lose it! Yesterday I was 100% on plan, and ate exactly at my 33 points for the day. Today is already all planned out, so I will be right at 33 again. I’m saving my weekly flex points for Fireman’s company holiday party on Thursday and for the Redskins game on Sunday (one of my girlfriends got box seats through work!) I might do my weigh in Sunday morning instead of Monday. Even though I’ll stay on plan Sunday, I don’t want to risk seeing a gain because of using some of my extra points on Sunday!

Also-I am all signed up for the Reindeer Run 5k, which I will of course be walking. It’ll be burr cold out, but it should be fun. We ordered reindeer antler headbands to wear for the event! My only goal is to do better than my time of 53 minutes at the Turkey Trot last week. I’m a bit disappointed that this event doesn’t seem to back a charity (at least from what I can tell on active.com) but I’ll think of it as a charity donation to my health!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Christmas? We went tree hunting on Sunday and brought home an absolutely gorgeous tree. The house is now almost completely decorated. Friday I’m going to watch Miracle on 34th Street and drink champagne with a few of my girlfriends, seriously, this time of year is just the bestest. Plus I’m still Christmas Cookie & Chex Mix Free. Only 31 days or 5 weeks in December, and I plan on making those 31 days count on my weight loss journey! I know there will be cookies & Chex mix, but this year they will stay under control.

This will be my first year where I wasn’t trying to eat as much as possible in December because I knew I’d be starting a new diet on January 1st. This December is like all of the other months, a journey to a healthier, happier version of my “authentic self” (Thank you emmabovary!)

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Turkey Trot 5k and Turkey Day Menu!

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I’m a little nervous and a little excited for tomorrows Turkey Trot 5k walk that I am doing with a handful of my friends. I haven’t walked much since I was sick last week, so hopefully it wont kick my bootie too much! One of my friends fiancé is going to walk with us, and apparently he never does any exercise, so I’m not too worried about being able to finish. I suppose the nerves are from never really participating in a formal race type of event like this! Am I going to get strange looks from the runners that are wondering what the heck I’m doing there? Am I going to get run over by people running around me? I know it’ll turn out OK, I’m just nervous I suppose! But seriously, what a great and healthy way to start the day!

I mentioned yesterday that I already put Thanksgiving Day food items into online tracker, here it is:

I included EVERYTHING that I could think of eating, and good size portions of it. I figured it was best to over estimate upfront and then take off the items I didn’t eat, or modify the portion sizes at the end of the day. Also include three glasses of wine, yay! I’ll still have about 13 flex points left if I do in fact eat EVERYTHING on this “menu” of sorts, and my plan is to not eat all of it.

I will be at Fireman’s parents house Thursday (after the Turkey Trot) until Friday afternoon. Friday evening is a get together with a big group of friends. Saturday is Christmas Tree hunting (yay!) and the VA Tech Game, and Sunday is a day for groceries, cleaning and laundry. A very full next four days, so I will not likely be posting again until Monday.

Everyone have an awesome Turkey Day, gobble-gobble!

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Holiday Eating

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There has been a lot of discussion in the Weight Loss Blogger Community about how the holiday eating frenzy will be handled. Given that this is the first holiday that I’m willing to not just blow the diet from Thanksgiving to New Years, I figured I’d let everyone in on my plan. First I should tell you that my theory is, if its something that you have available to you everyday, it’s not really special enough to splurge on.

Thanksgiving-It’s one day. I’m walking a 5k in the morning, and then eating whatever I want at the meal, but reasonable portion sizes. ONE MEAL, not an entire day of eating. I will stay on plan the rest of the week so that I have at least 25 or so Flex Points available to me should I need them. I’ve already put into online tracker anything and everything that I could imagine that they (Fireman’s family) could possibly serve on Thursday (including pie and three glasses of wine!), so it’s sort of like those points just aren’t available to me. I figure once we are done with the day, I can add/remove anything that I did or didn’t eat, but for now, there’s a pretty good estimate. We aren’t hosting Thanksgiving, so I figure we won’t have to deal with all of the leftovers.

The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is where I can foresee running into trouble. My all time favorite food is traditionally enjoyed by my family during this time period, homemade Chex Mix. Sure, there are lots of cookies and other random sweets, but those I can bypass fairly easily. Chex Mix is my crack. I made 3-2 Gallon bags of the stuff last year. Fireman MAYBE ate a quarter of it. Where do you think the rest went? In my mouth and applied directly to my gut. It was mainly subconscious eating. I’d fill up a bowl with the salty yumminess and then sit and watch some TV. Ten minutes later, where did the Chex Mix go?? Time for more! At some point, I just gave up on putting it in a bowl and ate it straight from the giant Ziplock bags. Since this is something that I only eat once a year, I am going to indulge in it. I’m going to make a small batch of it this year and pre-portion it out in Ziplock bags for one week, not enough for four weeks. Also this year, I’m only going to make two kinds of cookies, one batch of each instead of the 9, yes NINE kinds that I made last year. I love decorating the cookies with the kids, I can send some home with them to their Moms and I will bring the rest in to share at work. I love to cook and bake, so its fun for me.

On actual Christmas Day, my only challenge will be the Christmas Casserole that we make every year. One meal won’t kill me. There will be lots of holiday parties and eating out with friends, so there will be some flex points used (ok probably ALL of them), but I am going to keep on tracking each day.

This is probably more freedom than most people give themselves. I will stay on plan from day to day, but there will be minor splurges here and there. I figure 90% good and 10% bad. I do have 10 more lbs to lose to reach my Countdown to Christmas goal after all!

What’s your plan for the holiday eating extravaganza?

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare

Points VS. Calories

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As of yesterday I had two solid weeks worth of data where I counted both points and calories. Honestly, I don’t think one is better than the other. There were days when I was 4-5 below my points count, but I was at the top of my calorie range. There were days that I was 4-5 points above my calorie range, but was still within my calorie range. What does it all come down to? Fat and Fiber, but mostly fiber. When I was low on my points, but at the high end of my calorie range, I had significantly more fiber that day. If I was high on both points and calories, I had a lower amount of fiber. This information might be a bit boring, so I apologize in advance. It just helps me to see it out in print and think about how I should be tweaking what I am doing.

Here is the breakdown for the last two weeks. Please note that I was set at 34 points for each of these two weeks and that the fiber counts are lower than what I actually ate since I didn’t count calories or points for the 0 point veggies:

Yeah, Halloween sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. Viewing the data this way is really helping me to see where I have strengths and weaknesses. I love Weight Watchers; it’ll always be like that boy that you always check back on that you had a crush on. It’s a great program. Will I continue to count both calories and points? At least for the time being. I think eventually though, I’ll probably drop back to just one or the other. My plan is to count both at least through the end of the year. As I’ve said before, it’s the same action but a different motion. Either way you’re counting something, a point just includes more information than just a calorie. None of the above information takes into account my activity points that I would earn on Weight Watchers or how many calories I burn through out the day from daily life and from exercising.

What else I’ve noticed is that there are days that I wake up really hungry and days that I’m fairly hungry through out the day. I’m eating the right things, plenty of fruits and veggies and lean proteins along with whole grains. I’ve decided to up my calorie limit a bit to a point that should be equal to about a 2 lbs loss per week instead of what I’ve had it set at, which was 2.5 lbs per week. I’ve been exercising over my calorie target (sparkpeople sets a calories burned through exercise each week goal) and I think that I just need more calories. It’s not a substantial number, only about a 70 calorie increase on the top a day. Hopefully those extra calories will help me not feel as hungry AND help me from running off the deep end and eating something really bad :D My food for the next two days fall at exactly 33 points, which is where I should be with Weight Watchers.

Tata for now,

Scale Warfare