Seriously? I've already fallen off the wagon?

I gained 0.6! How in the heck is that possible??? I really have no idea. I've written down every morsel that has passed these lips and have stayed within my points. I have not exercised, but I'm told that shouldn't matter. So now I have to re-group and figure this thing out. I could let this get me down, but my goal was 1 pound per week and I lost three last week, so I'm still above my goal. So that's a positive. A negative is that I really am not sure what went wrong. I even peed before weighing in! Could weighing in at night after eating dinner (even though it is a healthy, within-my-points dinner) make all that much difference? Another member told me not to drink so much water on weigh-in day, that it could work against me. I'll have to try her theory next week ... .

Recipe of the Week

Today was a perfect snowy, slow cooker kind of day! This recipe comes courtesy of Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade magazine:

Slow-Cooker Beef Stew:
1 (3 pound) beef chuck eye roast, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I substituted extra virgin olive oil)
1 (32 ounce) carton beef stock, like Kitchen Basics
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 medium red onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
4 carrots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 (1.5 pound) bag small Yukon gold potatoes, like Melissa's
1 (9 ounce) box frozen baby sweet peas, like Green Giant

1. Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Working in 3 batches and using 1 tablespoon oil with each batch, cook beef, stirring occasionally for 4 to 5 minutes or until browned on all sides (about 15 minutes total). Transfer beef to a 6-quart slow cooker. Pour about 1/2 cup of stock into sillet, and stir to loosen particles from bottom of skillet with a wooden spoon. Pour into slow cooker.

2. In  medium bowl, stir together remaining stock and tomato paste. Pour stock mixture into slow cooker. Add onion, garlic, carrots, and potatoes. Cover, and cook on high for about 6 hours or until meat is fork tender. Uncover, and stir in frozen peas until heated through.

Makes 6 servings. WW Points per serving: 10

One of my MANY motivators

I have a lot of reasons for wanting to lose weight. I'm sure I'll blog about many of them. I collided with one of those reasons today: the dreaded bridesmaid dress shopping. My sister is getting married in October, and I am standing up in the wedding along with my husband and my oldest daughter. Clearly, I want to look decent. Clearly, being of the huskier variety, I have a bad attitude about dress shopping.  Well, any shopping really. It's just not a lot of fun when you're a bigger girl. But, I digress ... let's just stick to shopping for bridesmaid dresses. 

First of all, let's just say this ... a designer's idea of size is a lot different from the sizes that are out there in our department stores. So while shopping at a store like David's Bridal is somewhat nice because they carry the larger sizes that you can actually try on, you mostly are trying on a dress that is numbered sometimes two sizes up from your normal size. Thank you for that. Nothing makes you feel fatter than trying on a dress that is sized bigger than you actually are. Then you have the "other" bridal stores, the ones that only carry dresses for the toothpicks. So all you can do is be an innocent bystander while the "skinny bridesmaids" take to the runway and hope that if a dress is picked from there, by the time yours actually comes in and you try it on, you don't look too terrible.

So after the humiliation of either trying on dresses that are too small for you or dresses that just plain look hideous, you get the fun task of being measured. The seamstress should have an expense budget in which to take you out to dinner afterward. Then comes the decision ... and boy is it a big one: What size do you actually order? Your measurements clearly tell you what you SHOULD order, but what happens to someone like me? Someone who is trying really hard to lose weight? I was told by the seamstress that you only have a two-size span before a dress is unalterable. Research shows that you lose a size every time you lose about 10 to 15 pounds. So my goal is to lose at least 1 pound per week. I have roughly 36 weeks — almost three dress sizes if I stick to my goal — so do I chance it and order the dress one size smaller? Is that setting me up for failure??? Well, I have decided that I will order the dress one size smaller. I figured one month before the wedding, if for some reason I have fallen off the wagon or for other reasons I am still the same size as I am now (I'm kidnapped and forced to live on nothing other than Dr. Pepper and Cool Ranch Doritos), I can do a lovely crash diet and lose at least 15 pounds to fit into that dress.

There is no point on me touching on the subject that I could go above and beyond my goal and screw myself by losing too much weight. I'm just a "glass is half empty" kind of gal.

One of the many styles of dresses that was tried on. Yes, folks, that is a POCKET!

Beginners Luck?

So my first weigh in back this week and I lost 3 pounds! SWEET! So that's pretty motivating in itself.  I'm kind of hoping to lose at least a pound a week, so now I've created a nice little cushion for myself.  Although that's probably not a positive way to think!!! 

My thoughts on the program so far? Not bad. Learned a nice little lesson in portion control this week.  Monday night's dinner was taco night. I typically can chow down two tacos and a truckload of Doritos. Figured out the points for my 12 Doritos, then figured out the points for a taco and was a little disappointed that I could only have one. Kind of started out with a bad attitude that I was certainly going to starve, then after midnight sneak into the kitchen to finish off the bag of Doritos. Luckily for me I have a very distracting family, and by the time we finished dinner, cleaned up, played with my kids, bathtime and bedtime, I was too exhausted to care that I only had one taco. So I survived. Oh, and let me clarify that my tacos are about twice the size of a Taco Bell taco. So yes, I indeed was very far from starving!

Let's hope the trend continues for next week's weigh in!

Recipe of the Week

At least I'll try to post one weekly! So I didn't gain all this weight totally from fast food. I LOVE to cook. Not so much baking (way too much measuring and exactness for me), but good old-fashioned cooking. I mostly try out my recipes on Sunday's because that's when I have the most time. I can start out early so that if I screw up Jason (my husband) has time to run out and buy us dinner. I made the following chicken recipe for dinner tonight — and rather liked it. A little too much cumin for my taste ... thought it took away from the lime taste. Tonight's recipe is from the magazine Cooking Light:

Chicken Thighs with Garlic and Lime

1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, divided
4 (6 oz.) chicken thighs, skinned
3 tablespoons fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 lime wedges

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine first five ingredients in a small bowl; stir in 1 tablespoon juice. Rub garlic mixture over chicken. Place chicken in a medium skillet.

3. Combine 1 tablespoon juice, chicken broth, and vinegar; pour over the chicken. Place over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Wrap handle of pan with foil. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until a meat thermometer registers 180 degrees.

4. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm. Place pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, and cook until reduced to 1/4 cup (about 3 minutes). Spoon over chicken. Sprinkle with cilantro, and serve with lime wedges.

Yield: 2 servings (serving size: 2 thighs and 2 tablespoons sauce).  WW Points: 4 points

CALORIES 326; FAT 10.4g (sat. 2.6g, mono. 3.3g, poly. 2.6g); PROTEIN 51.1g; CARB 4.8g;
FIBER 0.5g; CHOL 212mg; IRON 4 mg; SODIUM 517mg; CALC 59mg

I'll try to be more photogenic with better presentation next time!

The Numbers Are In

Okay, so I survived my first meeting back on the program. I'm in love with my leader. She's originally from South Africa and has this awesome accent. She could probably read the phone book at the meetings and I would listen. 

Anyway, onto the business at hand. So according to Weight Watchers (WW), a woman of my height (which is 5 foot 6 inches) should weigh anywhere from 124 to 155 pounds. Just to meet the high end of that range, I will have to lose 79 pounds. And yes to all of you math geniuses out there I did more or less just inform all of cyberspace what my weight is. Since the conception of this blog, I struggled with whether or not I was going to put it out there. I struggled actually right up until this very second. But I figured since one day I will be featured in the "success story" section of WW Magazine or the "weight loss" issue of People magazine (on stands now by the way), I would have to share it anyway seeing as they literally just put those three numbers out there in black and white (for the rest of us who are inept at math) for the whole world to see.

Now WW doesn't take this whole goal setting thing very seriously ... yet. In fact I don't have to set a goal until I have reached my 10% weight loss. And they let you set pretty much any goal you want ... within reason of course. Reason being once you've reached your goal and have maintained it for two months (I think), you no longer have to pay to come to meetings (as long as you stay within 5 pounds of your goal weight). One idea I've been kicking around is screwing the whole number system completely and going with just a clothing size. I'm currently a size 20 and wouldn't mind being a size 14. Did you know that Marilyn Monroe was a size 14? One of the sexiest women of our time and in today's society she would be considered fat. I suppose that's another topic for another day.

For today my next goal to focus on is obtaining my 5% which is 11.7 pounds.

My Weight-loss Cocktail of Choice Is...

Weight Watchers. Here I sit on the eve of my first meeting back (we won't go into how many times I've attempted this) feeling a tad optimistic. It's do-or-die time! Why did I choose Weight Watchers? Let's put it this way ... the whole trying to lose weight thing? Not my first rodeo! I am a seasoned veteran.  I've tried everything from the very weird (I once heard Fergie did a shot of apple cider vinegar before every meal) to the very trendy (who didn't think living off of eggs and bacon every morning was the most awesome diet ever?) to the pill popping (so I drop dead of a heart attack at 25; I'd look good in the ambulance on the drive over to the hospital). 

So, are there diets that I haven't tried? Sure! I'm too poor to attempt Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig. I know people who have and have been successful on it ... until faced with the reality of rejoining a society where you can't walk into any restaurant and order a Jenny Craig/Nutrisystem meal off the menu. For me Weight Watchers is the logical choice. I like to eat. Scratch that last statement. I LOVE to eat, and I don't like being told not to have certain things. It makes me want them even more. This weight loss thing isn't hard to figure out — moderation and exercise. So if it's so simple, why can't it be so easily conquered? This isn't a rhetorical question; I really want to know!  

Okay, so wish me luck! Tomorrow I face the scale, learn where I need to be headed and hopefully get armored up to kick some squishy butt!

CHEERS!