A Little Tweak This Week

First of all, a great big THANK YOU to my bestest friend for guest posting for me last night. She did an excellent job and I'm quite sure I'll be asking for her services again in the future. :)

Now...here's the deal. I wrote last week that I was definitely, without a doubt, going to have a loss this week. I wrote about my "scale confidence" because I know what it takes to get the weight off. First, the decision...the absolute hardest part. That's been done. Secondly, the old tried and true philosophy of "eat less, move more"...and that's EXACTLY what I've done all week.

So...I hop on the scale yesterday morning to see what kind of glorious loss I'm working towards for Friday's weigh-in and guess what I see? I GAINED A POUND since last Friday. WHAT THE HECK??? My language was actually a little stronger than that, but I'll spare you the four-letter words.

Time to analyze. Have I eaten within my calorie limit since Friday? Absolutely, every single day. Have I done at least 20 mins of cardio every single day? Definitely, yes indeedy. Have I had any binges? Nope. Have I cheated at all on the calories? Nope. Am I lying to myself? No ma'am....absolutely not. Everything is above board and every calorie has been tracked and reported. Am I positive? Is it possible I've been lax at all? Hmmmmm......

Suddenly little mishaps started creeping back into my memory. First off, I keep a dry measuring cup, a liquid measuring cup, a set of measuring spoons, and a food scale on my kitchen counter at all times. I use them every day. Well....ALMOST all of them. There is one thing I haven't been using lately and that's the measuring spoons. I use sugar-free creamer in my coffee and it's 15 calories for 1 tbsp. I usually have 2 cups of coffee when I drink it, so that's 30 calories.

I got tired of the tediousness of measuring out little bits of creamer, so I stopped. I got irritated and I got lazy. I'm thinking I may have thrown an extra 15-30 calories here and there w/o realizing....and those things add up so fast. If I have 2 c. in the morning w/ breakfast, and 2 c. at night when I sit down to do my post...I might be intaking a good bit more calories just in stupid creamer than I was tracking on my nutrition website. So, in light of this error, I started using the measuring spoons again today.

Next in line....potato chips. No, I have not eaten half a bag of chips and not logged it. I DO do my best to be honest about my calories. I want the weight to come off, and as soon as possible, so no sense in purposely not writing something down. Just because you didn't log it, doesn't mean you didn't eat it. I saw something in Amy's post tonight at "Not So Secret Life..." that made me chuckle. Her sister is her personal trainer and she's training Amy to write down every morsel of food. She said, "If you bite it...you write it." I totally agree. However, I did remember that 2 different times yesterday I wanted to snack and I grabbed Dwayne's potato chips and had 2 chips each time....knowing not to eat a whole handful because that would just be stupid. Besides, I'm not a big chip person to start with. Definitely not a trigger food for me. I went back and read the calories on the bag tonight. 7 chips is 70 calories....so the 4 chips I ate and forgot to log was 40 calories!! Doh!

I've also done this with sesame crackers. Again, 7 crackers is 70 calories. Sometimes I'll pop 2 in my mouth when it's too late at night to eat much, and I usually don't have enough calories left anyway. It's a not a huge amount...20 calories...but add that to the chips and the creamer and I'm probably over 100 calories in a day w/o even realizing it. And that's EVERY day in some form or fashion. I've gotten a little soft on the calories apparently and I stopped it today.

Also, this Friday will be the last week for my 2 month/8 week weigh-in and last chance to hit my 10 lb. goal for the month. I've lost 8 lbs....gotta' have 2 more. Of course, I lost 12 last month, so if I don't get the other 2 gone this week, it's still 20 lbs lost in 2 months when you average it out, so technically, I guess the goal is still met. However, that's not how I want to think of it. I want those other 2 lbs gone THIS MONTH. So I decided to tweak things a little bit for today, Wed and Thur to see if it will produce a loss this Friday.

I've cut my calories down to 1400, which is still WELL within the range of calories my nutrition website gives me. They give me a range of 1200-1550. I'm hoping getting more dilligent with counting, and shaving off a few will give me a little boost. Also, I got on the treadmill and did 2 miles again in 30 mins...WOO HOO!! And then I decided this evening to go back down and do 2 MORE MILES/30 mins....for a grand total of 4 MILES today...GO SKINNY TAMMY!!

I'm hoping with this little tweak in my week (I love rhyming phrases :)) that I will see a loss on Friday...one that I can be proud of.

I've picked up some new followers this week....WELCOME!!! I also found some new totally awesome blogs this week...some of them newbies and to me that is just incredibly exciting....I couldn't help myself...I ran over to their blogs with the glorious news that THEY CAN DO IT!!!! I want everyone to know that this is the LAST time they ever have to lose weight. This is it. The grand finale...and the new beginning for them in so many other ways. Every time I read where someone says they're just not sure if they've got it in them to go another round...to try and lose the weight AGAIN...if they're really able to make the change for the better and make it stick this time.....oh my goodness. I start typing so fast there's smoke coming off my keyboard! I know I've only been in it for 7 weeks, but oh my the mental changes I'm making...the 72 lbs or so I've still got to lose doesn't intimidate me at all...not one tiny bit. I run over to their blogs and tell them YES, YOU CAN DO IT!! WITHOUT A DOUBT!! YOU KNOW YOU'VE GOT IT IN YOU OR YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE BLOGGING ABOUT IT. WE'LL DO IT TOGETHER!! I'M MENTIONING YOU IN MY BLOG!! LET'S ALL BEAT THIS THING TOGETHER!! LET'S SLAY OBESITY ONCE AND FOR ALL!! ONWARD, SOLDIERS!!

Yes, I know I'm a bit of a dork, lol, but when you finally get the mindset that I've got...the one where you know in your heart of hearts that you've finally got a grip....that you've found that intoxicating power to say "NO" to food...that yes, you really are worth it, when all these fat years you thought you weren't....you just can't help but reach out and grab someone's hand and pull them into the Happy Boat with you. Changing your life is hard....it's a hard, hard road...a lot of days are rough...and some may be stronger than others...or have been in the groove longer. I know on my weak days I go running to the blogs on my blogroll for inspiration, and I always, always find it. Undoubtedly, every time, someone says just what I need to hear....and it strengthens my resolve. It lifts me up when I'm too tired to pick myself up. We're all in this battle together. No one is alone.

This brings me to my quote for the day. I'm sure that by now most of you know about Jen from "Prior Fat Girl" and the untimely and tragic passing of her mom a few days ago. Boy has it had me torn up. I've cried every day since it's happened and prayed fervently that some peace will come to their family quickly. I had never read her blog until I saw a link on someone else's expressing their condolences....I read it on several blogs, actually. I pulled it up tonight and one of Jen's friends wrote a tribute to her mother, Kim. She put a quote in there that Kim had posted as a comment on one of her daughter Jen's posts. This woman and I could have been friends. I could feel her desire to help others....and it mirrors me completely. We have the same heart. :) I lifted it from the post so I could share it with you all tonight.

Quote For The Day:

"Now as we travel the road of life, we need to pick up others along the way as their loads may be too heavy to carry." -Kim, Jen at "Prior Fat Girl"'s mom