Weekly weight loss: week 18

Not much to say about weight loss stuff except that I'm staying on track, adding in more home cooked foods instead of packaged foods (oh, this is so nice and has been so missed!), and am now having an occasional dessert (fine as long as I plan for it, in my book). I'm still eating some Jenny Craig food - mostly just a few of my favorites at this point as I work to slowly figure out easy replacements that I can make or purchase that are simple, healthy, low cal, and lowish in sodium. I imagine myself as some kind of plane gliding in for a soft landing at the end of a long journey. We are beginning our descent! 

I am also starting to try adding in some occasional eating out with Will (date night!) every couple of weeks or so, but finding reliable sitters has been a challenge. We had our first of hopefully many date nights last night. Yay for sushi! Yay for an adult night out!

I had planned to start exercising this past week but had PRK eye surgery Friday and part of my post-op instructions are no sweating into my eyes, so...not doing anything sweat-inducing as of yet. But soon! I've signed up for a 10K in mid-June as a new goal, so I will need to get going if I have any hope of completing that without walking along the way (which would be fine if needed, but I'm going to shoot for jogging throughout). Scale continues to head downward. This week, I lost 2 pounds. Pretty awesome at this stage of the game.

I'm still hoping to better understand weight maintenance. Over and over again I've read that it's nearly impossible to keep lost weight off, which is kind of demoralizing, and sort of makes one want to just give up. But obviously some people manage it, so I want to try to follow their lead and learn what has worked for those who have succeeded at maintenance.

Here's the weight loss summary to date:

Weekly Weight Loss

Starting BMI just after Thanksgiving = 25.2 (officially overweight)
Week 1:     - 4.4 pounds (back into normal BMI territory, less than 25!)
Week 2:     - 0.8 pounds
Week 3:     - 3.6 pounds

Week 4:     out of town so no Jenny food and no weigh-in (Christmas travel madness!)

Week 5:     - 4.4 pounds since last weigh-in

Week 6:     - 2 pounds

Week 7:     - 1.6 pounds

Week 8:     - 1.4 pounds

Week 9:     + 0.4  pounds
Week 10:    - 4.2 pounds  

Week 11:    - 0.2 pounds  

Week 12:    - 3.0 pounds 
Week 13:    + 1.2 pounds
Week 14:     away in the Middle East
Week 15:     away in the Middle East
Week 16:    - 4.8 pounds

Week 17:    - 0.4 pounds

Week 18:    - 2.0 pounds
Grand Total: 31.2 pounds lost (BMI = 20.1)

At this point I am 2.4 pounds away from what I weighed in high school. Yowza. Who ever would have thought THAT would be possible?

And the other thing I never would have predicted? This actually has not been that difficult. I think the structure of the Jenny Craig program has really worked for me at this stage of my life. I've had some difficult moments, but overall, not really so rough to do this. I wish I'd realized that a few years ago! But better now than later!

Mo

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Weekly weight-loss: week 17

Plugging along over here in weight-loss land, staying on track and trying to figure out the exact place to stop and begin the transition to maintenance. I was originally thinking I would stop dieting 5 pounds ago, but now I am here and am wondering about just continuing until I lose another 4.4 pounds (which will take me to a nice even number, a thin, but still healthy, BMI of 19.7), and weight equal to what I weighed in high school.

My goal all along has been to pick a stopping point where I have a "buffer" zone of 3-5 pounds, a range of weight I commit to remain within. So right now I'm thinking that where I'm at now can be the "upperish" limit and a few pounds below this the "lowerish" limit. But we'll see. It's all gravy at this point, so if I start to feel overly restricted or hungry, I can always opt to decide that where I'm at currently will be the stopping point.

Now that I'm so close to my goal (or have I arrived?) I'm starting to cook more, re-making dishes that Will and I love and haven't had since I started the Jenny Craig plan, but this time measuring everything out so I can figure out portions and calories. Once I've done that a few times I'll know and can stop the measuring of every ingredient - which is good, because it's tedious. So this weekend I made two of our favorite dishes and learned that I can eat as much of a gluten-free goat cheese, asparagus pizza (with fresh basil!) as I always have. I also learned, sadly, that a penne pasta, lean turkey sausage, peppers, arugula, and parmesan cheese dish I love will now include significantly less penne pasta than it used to (sigh). Honestly, although the portion looks small to me, it tasted delicious and was plenty filling. It was more of a visual shock to see the smaller amount than anything else.

Numbers-wise on the scale, things are continuing to trend slowly downward. Which fits well with the plan to just go slow and be consistent, and just see what my body does. This week, my body lost 0.4 pounds. Fine by me.

Next on my goal list is to try to start adding in some exercise consistently and to read up on the research on maintenance and implement what has been shown to help people keep the weight off. God knows I want to learn to make this a permanent change in my life, not the beginning of a yo-yo situation.

So here's the summary of the weight results to date:

Weekly Weight Loss

Starting BMI just after Thanksgiving = 25.2 (officially overweight)
Week 1:     - 4.4 pounds (back into normal BMI territory, less than 25!)
Week 2:     - 0.8 pounds
Week 3:     - 3.6 pounds

Week 4:     out of town so no Jenny food and no weigh-in (Christmas travel madness!)

Week 5:     - 4.4 pounds since last weigh-in

Week 6:     - 2 pounds

Week 7:     - 1.6 pounds

Week 8:     - 1.4 pounds

Week 9:     + 0.4  pounds
Week 10:    - 4.2 pounds  

Week 11:    - 0.2 pounds  

Week 12:    - 3.0 pounds 
Week 13:    + 1.2 pounds
Week 14:     away in the Middle East
Week 15:     away in the Middle East
Week 16:    - 4.8 pounds

Week 17:    - 0.4 pounds

Grand Total: 29.2 pounds lost (BMI = 20.4)

Feeling good! Feeling on track! Feeling open to seeing what seems like the right next step.

Mo

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My baby as a wind-up toy

Before Magpie was born, I used to think of a gestating embryo as a wind-up toy: as this fantastical creation that had a certain amount of energy that might fizzle out at any moment. 

From a prior blog post during my 7th pregnancy: 

 "I still have some moments where I perceive this baby as a wind-up toy, one that was better wound up than any of the previous ones, but that will still inevitably run out of steam, move sssslllloooowweeer and slllloooowwweer until it finally comes to a complete stop.  

[The embryo] sure wasn't moving slower and slower yesterday, though. Yesterday, this baby looked like a maniac. Looked like it would squirm out of my hands if I were holding it and shimmy across the floor and out the door.

"I know there is no evidence for the wind-up toy theory, except for the prior losses. I think a lot of the wind-up theory actually stems from a failure of imagination on my part. From the fact that it seems incredible that two cells, an egg and a sperm, could come together and make something that would then take on a life of its own. Have all this energy to grow and divide, and grow grow grow, and now move! Twisting and turning inside of me."

The aliveness of that baby was beyond my imagining then. And now that Magpie is here, almost 18 months old, whirring around our apartment like a dervish - toddle toddle toddle at breakneck speed, always so busy, my girl! - it remains beyond my imagination. 

But she is definitely here, and it certainly does not seem she is about to run out of energy anytime soon. And yet still sometimes, I think I conceptualize her as some living version of a wind-up toy. Sometimes I tiptoe in to her crib while she is sleeping, just to check - is her chest still rising and falling? Is she still "wound up"? Yes, she is still living, so far, always. And when she is awake there is no question, as she is on the go constantly, exploring, climbing, oh my goodness this weekend actually jumping up and down on the couch (how is that even possible at her age?!). Just as I saw in that very early ultrasound, when she was 9 weeks and 5 days along, she is a mover, my girl. She is still, as she was then, a bit of a maniac.

And I as her Mama am still stunned in some way that she could ever have come to pass. Still in awe that she could be with us now, so here, so fully present, so undeniably alive.

Mo 

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Tips for traveling overseas with a toddler

We've just returned from our two-week trip to the Middle East, which involved a 13-hour flight each way and an 8-9 hour time change. I have to say, as a mom of our very, very active 17 month old, Magpie, I was not looking forward to my kiddo being confined on the plane those many hours, and the time change was also nervous-making.

But Magpie did great with the trip - handling the jet lag like a champ and tolerating the flights quite well. What a relief!

So I wanted to share what worked for us, in case it could be of help to others.

The main rule I would state is that to successfully survive a lengthy plane flight, allow yourself to break your usual parenting rules.

This suggestion breaks down into the following categories:

1. Snacks. We always travel with snacks, but we are usually pretty health conscious in what we choose. For the plane trip, we threw that out the window and packed snacks with high appeal and ease of delivery, adding a few mini boxes of sugar cereal to our typical fare of  lentil chips, cheese sticks, and dried fruit. We also packed mucho formula powder (Magpie has drunk Baby's Only brand), so that if the milk overseas tasted "funny" to Magpie she'd have a comforting and familiar beverage available. So advice is, bring snacks, lots of snacks. Lots of different snacks if you can.

2. We still use a pacifier with nap time and overnight. We have been moving toward weaning her from them but decided to wait until after this trip. At home, Magpie can only have the pacifiers at nap time and bedtime. On the plane flight, we allowed her to have pacifier anytime she wanted it. This resulted in a pretty pacified kid.

3. Activities - we don't usually let Magpie watch videos or play on the iphone, ipad, etc. However, for this trip, we downloaded a few Baby Einstein videos and a couple of early toddler counting and other games (I found "recommended" video games for her age group, even though I think screen time isn't really recommended at all before at 2. I also bought sticker books, coloring books, washable crayons, and a small new toy. The idea was to have some quiet and stationary things to do with her when she started going nuts with the sitting still.

Secondly, be very thoughtful about your seating on the plane.

In specific, I'd recommend:

1. Pony up for a seat for your kid. If they are under two you don't have to, but your life will be so much easier. I promise you this is true. For previous flights, we have always flown with her on our laps. Her having her own seat was a life saver. * Edited to add: that said, Magpie did not sit in her seat for take-offs or landings. These were experienced exclusively in daddy's lap using the infant seatbelt (she hates being restrained, and she would not tolerate it in her own seat).

2. Choose your seats on the plane wisely. We opted for the first row in economy going, and we scored an empty seat beside us to boot. These were golden. Magpie was able to stand and "play" in the bigger space afforded by being in the front row and the extra seat let her lie across and  sleep better. That said, coming home, we were stuck behind another row with no extra seat and we coped ok. But it was easier with the front row extra room and extra empty seat, by far.

So that's the plane flight recommendations. There is also the significant time change to contend with.

My number one recommendation for successful and quick adaptation to the time change is that you start preparing for the shift ahead of time.

For departure: We started adjusting Magpie's naptimes and bedtime several days ahead of our departure, moving both an hour later each day for about 4 days ahead of our trip. This caused some fairly suffering in our household because Magpie clung to her wake up time for three of those days, even as the sleep times moved later. But it started her in the direction of adjusting and I think reduced our suffering on arrival at our destination. We also skipped her nap entirely the first day at our destination just due to circumstances, so she was one sleepy girl by that first night. The happy result? She slept really well on the new schedule, waking up the first two nights at 3am at the time of our destination (7pm here), but quickly settling again and sleeping through the rest of the night. By the third night, she just slept through.

For return: We failed to heed our own advice and didn't pregame anything with Magpie in terms of adjustment. We've been home 6 nights, and she is still not sleeping well and is waking several times a night, so this is not the recommended course of events. It is getting better, but in hindsight, I wish for all of our sakes that we'd started moving our bedtimes/wake up times back in the right direction (it was a 9 hour change coming home), rather than wait to tackle it on arrival back in NYC. Live and learn.

Those are the main suggestions I can think of. What about you guys? What has worked when traveling internationally with little ones? Please chime in in the comments!

Mo

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Weekly weight-loss: week 16, return from vacation

So I've been out of town for two weeks. Far away in the Middle East. I was excited for this trip and wanted to enjoy it fully. At the same time, I didn't want to do too much damage to the weight loss efforts I've made over the past three months. So I was hoping to strike a balance of not going hog wild, but also not missing out on interesting foods during our travels. Instead, I decided to plan carefully how I would handle eating on our journey. Seemed foolproof, but as is often the case, there ended up being a major difference between what I planned to do and what I did.

What I planned:

• I brought several Jenny Craig cereal packets and non-frozen meals (a combination of the tuna/chicken lunch kits and the southwestern chicken and rice, for any Jenny Craigers who are reading) because I figured I could fit them in occasionally over the two-week trip as a way to limit some of the calorie onslaught of eating out for two weeks straight.
• I packed my workout clothes and running shoes, planning to work out at the hotel gyms every day that it was possible.
• I told myself that I would not eat at buffets because they tend to cause me to overeat. I would order off of a menu and just have a reasonable portion of whatever my choice was. If I needed to eat at a buffet, I would choose one or two items after looking at everything first, and keep my portions reasonable.
• I told myself I would only eat when actually hungry and that I would try to make healthy choices.

Sounds good, right? Might have been, if I had actually done any of it. Instead...

What I did:

• I never ate a single morsel of Jenny Craig food the entire journey, instead carrying all that food around two countries and then bringing it back home again. I just couldn't bring myself to eat it when there were so many interesting foods around, to be honest. 
• I exercised exactly once, running on the treadmill at our first hotel for about 20 minutes. Otherwise, we did do a bit of walking some days, and the last several days we played in the pool daily with Magpie, but I wouldn't call any of this strenuous.
• We ate buffet food for at least two meals every day (usually breakfast and dinner). So many choices!! So delicious!! This was mostly because Magpie only had a limited length of time she would sit quietly and waiting for someone to prepare a meal, especially when they weren't very speedy, typically meant she was done with sitting by the time the food arrived. Lunch was often ordered off of a menu, and some of the dinners were entertainment/business dinners (each of these a multi-course food extravaganza at which I was forcefully encouraged by the hosts to eat more! and have another dessert!).
• Many times I ate when I wasn't really hungry because there was so much tasty food around and I wanted to try it, or Will and Magpie were eating, and seeing all the food was too tempting.

Needless to say, all signs pointed to my diet being, at least temporarily, doomed.

The divergence between my plans and my actual behavior became apparent pretty much immediately. I quickly opted to just surrender to the process. I didn't want to be obsessive or miserable or feel deprived, and so I decided to just accept that I would likely gain weight while we were away, and I would deal with it after we returned home. I hoped not to gain too much, because I knew it would be frustrating to come home more than 5-7 pounds heavier, but honestly I had no idea how far over I was going. I just told myself I would let myself have a good time (yes, including daily Middle Eastern treats like kibbeh and umm ali) and then get back on the wagon diet-wise when I got home.

But darned if despite the food intake - which I'm telling you, was not insubstantial - my clothes felt looser by the end of the trip. And in a continual absolute craziness of events, when I went in to Jenny Craig on Monday night for my weigh-in, I somehow actually lost weight on our trip. I have no idea how this is possible, but according to the scale at Jenny Craig, I lost a whopping 4.8 pounds.

Weekly Weight Loss

Starting BMI just after Thanksgiving = 25.2 (officially overweight)
Week 1:     - 4.4 pounds (back into normal BMI territory, less than 25!)
Week 2:     - 0.8 pounds
Week 3:     - 3.6 pounds

Week 4:     out of town so no Jenny food and no weigh-in (Christmas travel madness!)

Week 5:     - 4.4 pounds since last weigh-in

Week 6:     - 2 pounds

Week 7:     - 1.6 pounds

Week 8:     - 1.4 pounds

Week 9:     + 0.4  pounds
Week 10:     -4.2 pounds  

Week 11:     -0.2 pounds  

Week 12:     -3.0 pounds 
Week 13:     +1.2 pounds
Week 14:     away in the Middle East
Week 15:     away in the Middle East
Week 16:     -4.8 pounds (what the???!!!)

Grand Total: 28.8 pounds lost (BMI = 20.4)

Total surprise over here. A very happy surprise!

Color me pleased but bewildered. At this point, I think I've given up on trying to figure out the fluctuations on the scale. Several weeks here at home, I've measured every single bite, eaten the Jenny Craig recommended 1,200 calories a day (which is not much!), and lost almost nothing or gained a bit. Then I travel, eat multiple sizable buffet meals a day (with bread! oil! sugar!), and come home almost 5 pounds lighter. It's incomprehensible. My Jenny Craig consultant is convinced I underate while traveling, but that is really not what my perception was. I asked Will for his impressions, since he was there too, and he said that not only did I not undereat, he thought I indulged myself, without going totally overboard into binge territory. So it's weird. Good weird, but weird. Obviously, water retention, hormones, etc., have a lot to do with the ups and downs the scale shows, but I guess I didn't think it would vary this much.

So we'll see what happens in the next week or so as my body readjusts to the time change, being home, etc.. I'm more than half expecting to see a big apparent "gain" next week, just because this apparent "loss" seems so precipitous, and not in line with the food intake. 

But as long as things stay reasonably stable, it appears that I'm just about done with losing weight and am close to or have arrived in maintenance land!!! If I lost 5 more pounds I would weigh what I did in high school. And if I lost anything beyond that, I think I'd look scary. So somewhere around here seems just fine. 

Of course then the trick will be (no small feat) to figure out how to keep things in this same ballpark weightwise, plus or minus 5 pounds. From everything I've read, it seems that maintenance is the most challenging part of weight loss - how to keep the weight off for the long-term.

But for now, yay!!!! I really can't believe how far I've come since December! And what a fantastic surprise to find out that our two weeks away didn't equal weight gain! 

Mo


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