Weight loss update: week 19 & 20 - Final Results!

Just a quick post on this...basically I'm completely done with weight loss and ready to shift to maintenance...but I still don't have a good sense of how to successfully do the maintenance part. Sounds weird, and I guess a "good" problem to have, in the scheme of things. So wanted to post these finalish numbers, and sheepishly admit that I think I've probably lost a pound or so more since then, out of ignorance of how to get the balance right, more than anything.

If anyone has thoughts or experience on the transition to maintenance, please pipe in! I'm so slammed at work and with the continuing eye and nanny issues (Magpie, thankfully, seems to be sleeping through the night again at least) that I barely have time to eat, let alone to plan and initiate another change in the eating routine. I've also come down with a chest cold, so am coughing my way through the days and nights. Blech. So given all of this, for now I'm allowing myself some latitude, but seemingly, based on the continued loss, am not eating enough. I just keep reminding myself that I'm not going to actually disappear anytime soon. I will just have to figure out the calorie in-calorie-out balance thing over time, and apparently, it's going to be a process. Whoever thought stopping weight loss would prove as challenging as losing weight?

Here's the update over the last 20 weeks. Wow, can't believe it, 20 weeks!

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

Week 19:    - 1.4 pounds
Week 20:    - 2.2 pounds
Grand Total: 34.8 pounds lost (BMI = 19.5)

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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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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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Weekly weight loss, week 13

Plugging along over here in weight-loss land.

Effortwise, it was a pretty good week. I was adherent to my calorie limit throughout the week, although I included one Cooking Light slow cooker meal (eaten with Will over a few different dinners). But even with this, I weighed the meat and carefully doled out the appropriate calorie amount (Good, Mo!). We also ate out Saturday night with friends, and it was the first time I've done a group eating out scenario. I didn't special order everything like the other times I've eaten out but I did try to watch my portions and not eat anything crazy. It was difficult to estimate calorie count, since I didn't have anything I could easily guesstimate in terms of calories (typically I play it very safe when eating out and get some kind of plain protein and steamed veggies, but this time, we were at a Dominican restaurant, and I had a few bites of arepas, and a few bites of paella, and a couple of soft tacos). I skipped dessert, didn't have any alcohol, and figured it should all be reasonably ok.

I also hit the gym a few times this week, which is brand new for me, and this past weekend, when I couldn't figure out how to get the interval program working on the treadmill, I decided to just run for 20 minutes. Was shocked to find I was able to do that and maintain a 12-minute mile pace. Really slow, I know, but I haven't really worked out in any sustained way in over a year, and at that point, I was definitely not running for 20 minutes straight. So I was surprised and thrilled. Sunday, I followed it up with a run outside with Will and Magpie and Moxie - and this time ran for 24 minutes straight! I thought I would die, but lo and behold, I did not. Instead, I ended up really proud of myself on the exercise front.

I was NOT feeling confident about the weight loss this week, though. My legs felt heavy and swollen from running, I ovulated Sunday or Monday (and the last time I ovulated is also the last time I showed a gain on the scale), and the restaurant meal was a real wild card. Also, last week, I lost 3 pounds! Seemed destined that things might not go well. All, in all, I figured all bets were off.

And, well, the scale reflected my concerns. Somehow, despite everything, I *gained* 1.2 pounds. There is NO WAY, by the way, that I consumed an extra 3500 calories at that dinner. Absolutely no way. So there is definitely something funky going on with me and the scale this week.

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 (akkkk!!!)

Grand Total So Far: 24 pounds lost (BMI = 21.2)

I'm trying not to get demoralized by this week's scale number. It feels like a HUGE gain. We leave at the end of the week for an overseas business trip, which is exciting, but stressful, and continuing with the weight loss is a major stressor of the trip. But I will just do my best and we'll see where things stand when I get home and back in the weight loss saddle.

Mo

photo credit: http://changebeginshere.tumblr.com/fatloss

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Weight loss update, week 12

I've been at this weight-loss thing for 12 weeks now. Wow! Go me! I'm proud of making this commitment to my health and sticking with it this long. Joining Jenny Craig has helped with that significantly, I think: the structured plan, the weekly weigh-ins, and the feedback. I don't love everything about the program, but it has helped immensely to feel like a lot of the effort has been taken out of this for me. I just have to do what I'm told and stay the course. Which is not nothing; it's still taken considerable commitment. But as someone who has never done a structured weight loss program before (I've always been a DIY dieter), well, the difference is quite noticeable. Have I ever stuck with a weight-loss effort this long before? Yes. But I was always really struggling by this point in the game previously (I also lost weight A LOT more slowly when doing the weight loss on my own). Add in the stress of my job plus caring for a 16 month old, and I don't think there is any way this weight loss would have happened without the additional support and ease factor this program has given me. 

Over the last 12 weeks, the weight has come off pretty rapidly. And while yes, it has taken effort and commitment, it hasn't felt like it has taken herculean effort for the most part (a major exception was this weekend when Will decided to bake my favorite kind of cupcakes. Arrrgh! WILL!!! But despite the significant temptation, I did not indulge, and I was proud of myself afterward. The cupcakes are tucked out of sight somewhere in our kitchen, at my request, and I am not going to be seeking them out. I knew that if I had to look at them, it would just be a matter of time until I caved and ate them.)

I went into this week's weigh-in feeling...I guess the best way to describe it is open-minded but unsure. I'm so close to the finish line at this point, who knew what the scale would show? I was diet-adherent this week eating my planned Jenny Craig cuisine and lots of veggies plus yogurt, although I actually underate a couple of days because I was (first) caring for and cleaning up after Magpie who caught a nasty stomach bug (I love you, Magpie, but gross!), which sort of killed my desire to eat, and then (second) a few days later I was dealing with mild symptoms of said GI bug (I have learned that it is hard not to catch someone's virus when they repeatedly vomit all over you). But the sickness seems to have passed for both of us, and I have returned to my regularly scheduled diet. 

So, moment of truth, what did the scale show this week?

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 

Grand Total So Far: 25.2 pounds lost (BMI = 21!)

Yup, I was shocked too - I LOST 3 POUNDS!!! Needless to say, I was thrilled with the weight loss this week. I couldn't believe it! Looking back, I think that probably a good chunk of the weight loss occurred in the prior week but didn't show on the scale for some reason. It just seems more realistic that I lost 1.5 pounds each week than that I lost basically nothing last week and then 3 pounds this week (especially now that I don't have far to go with the weight). I've been doing all the right things all along, so that makes more sense than these strange fluctuations. 

So yay!! Very, very soon I'll have to choose my weight loss stopping point. At the MOST, I might lose another 3ish pounds, but we'll see how it goes and what feels right. Wow! So close now!

Mo

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Weight loss update, week 11

I went into this week's weigh-in feeling really good about things. I was spot-on with my eating this week. Although I walked less this week (abysmal weather in NYC), I exercised intensely for 40 minutes both Sunday and today. We were out of town over the weekend, so I brought all of my own food and we stayed somewhere we could do our own cooking. Because of that there was no eating out, no calorie splurges, nothing that should have made things go awry. So I felt pretty good about that.

We also went outlet shopping this weekend, something I had been wanting to do once I got close to my goal weight. One of the cool side effects of losing weight is that I've been able to pull things out of the back of the closet that haven't fit in over five years and put them on. It's been pretty fun. But most of my current clothes, undergarments, etc., are hanging on me, and not in such a good way. One of the things I've read about weight maintenance is that it can help to get rid of your clothes from your heavier days and wear clothes that fit the smaller you - another way to demonstrate your commitment to the new weight for the long haul. Given that we might do an IVF FET and, god willing, pregnancy again if we got super lucky, I'm not going to get rid of my bigger clothes, but I do plan to box them up and store them out of state in a relative's basement. (Thank you, relatives who have so much more storage space than we do!) Anyway, we went shopping and I was hoping to find out I was a size smaller in my jeans. I've been wearing a 12...well, lo and behold, I was not a 10, as I expected, nor an 8, as I had secretly hoped. I was a 6! What a crazy thing to find out! Dress size has also gone down, as has my bra size (I knew that - it's obvious, a lot of which is probably attributable to having weaned a few months ago).

So I was feeling good going in for my weekly appointment and weigh-in. 

Funny thing is, despite all this, the scale didn't really agree with how I was feeling. *I* might have been feeling like I had a great week, but according to the numbers, my weight is pretty much at a stalemate. 

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  

Grand Total So Far: 22.2 pounds lost (BMI = 21.5)


So the numbers aren't great this week. Despite that, and it surprises me a fair amount to be able to type this, I'm not so down about it. I'm a little disappointed that the scale didn't show my efforts, but eh, not that disappointed. I figure if I just keep doing what I'm doing, it will show up on the scale soon enough. I have 5-6 pounds maximum more to lose (possibly as little as 4). I'm thinking patience is the key in this situation, and losing 0.2 pounds feels way better than gaining 0.4 pounds a couple of weeks ago. I think I'd also expected a lower weight loss this week after the 4.2 pound loss last week. Can't do that every week, especially this late in the game. My body needs to adjust some, I would imagine.

So I'm thrilled to be smaller and be wearing smaller clothes. Yay for that! And I'm coping well with a somewhat disappointing result at the weigh-in. But overall things are good. This week the plan is just to stay the course, do what I know works, and wait for the scale to realize it, too. 

Mo

Thank you, Jenny Craig PR department!

I came home from work today to find a box from the Jenny Craig public relations department.

Inside the box was a bag.

And inside the bag was all of these Jenny Craig treats - cookies and candy bars, and popcorn, and vitamin bars. Plus, a signed book by Barbara Rolls. A book I've actually thought about buying. Very cool.

Turns out you guys aren't the only ones who read this blog.*

So a big thank you to Jenny Craig - I will definitely enjoy these treats!

That said, I promise to still give you guys my unbiased opinions on the Jenny Craig food and total Jenny Craig experience, swag or no swag. The food has continued to be, across the board, above my expectations. The only major food issue I've had so far was with the chicken corn chowder soup, which somehow unfortunately exploded in my office microwave despite following the instructions. Clearly it needed to be watched more closely.  But foodwise, I have no regrets about this program. It has made the weight loss as easy as it could possibly be. Will said recently, with a tinge of incredulity, "It doesn't seem like you've suffered very much losing the weight." Because yes, I guess weight loss is usually accompanied by hair shirt wearing and incredible feats of willpower. This program, not so much most of the time.Which is pretty darn cool.

Mo

*The PR department first reached out to me via email last week and said they wanted to send a small token of thanks. So the arrival of this package was not as stalkerish as it might otherwise have sounded.

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Weight loss update: week 10

OK. So the weekly recap this week includes me being much more adherent to the Jenny Craig diet. I have been very adherent caloriewise all along, but obviously something was off last week, despite me thinking everything was fine on the intake and exercise side of things, so per my Jenny Craig consultant's recommendation, I went back to mostly Jenny Craig food (I did the equivalent of 5 days of Jenny food and 2 days "on my own"). I made four dinners of non-JC food this week, and I had a few non-JC "snacks," like a small portion of air popped popcorn one night, and a string cheese snack another night, but otherwise, except for the huge amounts of cooked vegetables and salads I eat daily, I ate only JC food. This is obviously not the long-term goal (which instead is to learn to eat small nutrient-dense portions and watch my calorie intake), but I really wanted to get the weight situation in check quickly, before it impacted my motivation. Because I can't pin down what went "wrong" last week, the only way to be sure to correct it seemed to be to go back to more JC food, since that's been working. So I did. I was kind of dreading it, because after 10 weeks of this food, I thought I was a bit sick of it, but honestly that part of things has been fine. The food is pretty good, so even on the days I opened a package of whatever meal and had lukewarm feelings to it, the actual eating of the meal was pleasurable.

The other thing I added this week was starting the plank-a-day challenge. I don't know if I'll make it to the end of it, but post c-section, my tummy could use some toning (understatement). And I'm figuring my weight is moving in the direction of toning exercises having the ability to actually show. That would be nice! So I'm up to a 1 minute 30 second plank, and OMG it is hard. But nice to focus on progressing on something else, in addition to the scale, just so my metaphorical eggs aren't all in one basket.

I still haven't taken measurements as was so sagely recommended by Melissia last week. But it's a really good idea. I'm definitely smaller than I was when I started this journey, even if I can't quantify it. I'll try to get on that soon.

So where did this week's efforts land me on the scale?

Weight-wise, I did VERY well!! Yay! So last week must have just been some weird temporary glitch.

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  

Grand Total So Far: 22.0 pounds lost (BMI = 21.6!!)

Oddly, despite thinking I had adhered pretty well to the diet, my JC consultant was still in "we must find out what went wrong" mode and was going over my food for the week with a razor-sharp focus. Which could have felt awesome and collaborative, but somehow the tone of it felt...negative. So one day it was, "you had too much sodium" and overall I "didn't eat enough fruit" (true, I stopped eating much fruit when diabetic, per my nutritionist's instructions, and replaced it with loads of leafy green and other non-starchy veggies). I didn't really hear about much that I had done right. Maybe it was me and my skin was extra thin today for some reason, but weirdly, it felt like I was being chastised and I left feeling a bit down in the dumps rather than elated at the week's successful weight loss.

So I'm strangely not looking forward to next week's weigh-in and another round of scrutiny. Not because I am so fearful I won't have lost weight, although there's some of that, but more that at the end of a long day at work and a week of strong effort dieting and exercising, I hope to have a more positive interaction. Because, you know, I feel like I've been working my butt off -  literally!

But anyway, main point is, I am back on track! Three cheers to progressing again with the weight loss!

Mo

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Weight loss update, week 9: speed bump

It's becoming a theme now that my weight has gotten lower that I am very nervous before each week's weigh-in (which happens every Monday night), worried the scale won't show my efforts. Worried that if it doesn't, I'll lose momentum or feel that sense of diet futility I've felt before. It is hard to tell if plateauing is a real thing to be concerned about, or if my fear of not losing is more a mental game, that since I'm now down to the weight I was when I got married (OMG!), that it feels like anything further will be difficult and/or impossible.

Using myfitnesspal to track my calories has been a godsend. I actually almost enjoy the process of logging my meals (I know, I'm weird) and find it really motivating. And based on my food diaries online, I was really good with my food intake all week, eating a little bit more (like up to 50 calories more a day, per my Jenny Craig consultant's recommendation), but also being sure to get in an average of 10,000 steps a day. I even (gasp) cooked Sunday night. Using a Cooking Light recipe, I made a pork tenderloin with plum sauce with a heaping side of steamed rainbow chard and another large side of steamed green beans (funny how I've grown to love green veggies). It was absolutely delicious (Magpie and Will both loved it too), and low in calories to boot. We were home this weekend and didn't eat out at all, not even a Starbucks the whole time. So there wasn't much estimating of portion sizes and no hidden extra calories. 

But all those facts didn't make me confident that the scale would show good results. Add to my anxiety the fact that I think I'm ovulating today and I wore a different outfit today than usual, thanks to the snowstorm (yup, it's probably on the obsessive side, but I typically wear the same dress on Mondays to eliminate that particular source of measurement error). 

So again when the Monday evening weigh-in time at Jenny Craig arrived, I covered my eyes just like last week, fearing that my weight had stagnated, or, please no!, actually gone up.

And damn, but despite thinking I'd done everything right, my fears were confirmed.

This week, my weight WENT UP 0.4 pounds.

UGH.

So here's where things are at overall, as of today:

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 (!)
Grand Total So Far: 17.8 pounds lost (BMI = 22.3)

So I'm still processing the shock and disappointment of this.Trying not to make a mountain out of a speed bump. Hoping I won't take this as evidence to give up.

I've done really, really well the past nine weeks. All through the Christmas holidays, plus traveling. I don't know what happened today. I don't even have some major splurge to blame this on, or a bread crumb trail of small slips. I was really good this week, actually. 

But whatever happened, the worst thing for me to do would be to throw in the towel and use this as an excuse to go way off track.

So I'm doubling down this week. Going back to eating more Jenny Craig food than I had been (and less carefully prepared and measured food on my own). Watching my sodium intake more closely.

And most of all, trying not to lose my morale.  Mo, this is not a reason to give up. This is a small snag in the process. Stay with it.

I'm going to give it my all to stick with everything for the next seven days. We will see what next week's weigh-in brings.

Here's hoping the scale gets back on track soon, and that my motivation doesn't wobble in the meantime.

Mo

Quick weight loss update

I was nervous this week about my weight loss progress. I ate out Friday night, and had steak and steamed veggies AND a baked potato with sour cream and butter AND a glass of wine. I was out of town all weekend and staying in a place full of temptations (my mother in law's), and then I capped off the weekend by hosting friends for dinner Sunday night. Oh, and it's also my time of the month (yup, not surprising, but not pregnant again), so I feel bloated. Any one of these seemed like the types of situations that could result in a weight plateau or gain.

I have been faithfully logging my intake using myfitnesspal since the beginning, so I knew that according to my food diary, I should be on track caloriewise overall this week, but I didn't feel on track. I ate a few unplanned items and was eating numerous non-Jenny foods, which had me nervous (it's the goal, of course, to get off of their food and eat on my own, but still...at this point tends to make me a bit anxious, especially when I'm guesstimating portion sizes).

So come Monday evening, my weigh-in time at Jenny Craig, I really didn't know what to expect (I actually covered my eyes during the weigh-in).

But PHEW! Still on track!

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
Grand Total So Far: 18.2 pounds lost! (BMI = 22.2!!!)

Not me, but you get the idea.

How much weight have I lost? I have lost a whole Magpie! I believe 18 pounds is about how much she weighs now, and she is getting heavy! (finally!)

According to yesterday's weigh-in, I am .4 pounds (point four!) away from the original goal weight I listed with the center. Of course, now I am thinking I will set a new lower goal...another 5 pounds at least, perhaps up to 10, depending on how it feels. Aiming for thin but sustainable, with a little buffer zone I can work to stay within. We will see where we land!

Mo

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