I am down 33.2 pounds!

I am soooo happy to say that I am finally losing weight steadily! I started Weight Watcher's in October last year. Just before Halloween and all that yummy chocolate smell. I have been working hard, eating right and getting as much exercise as I can. With my migrains it makes it hard to do a whole lot sometimes. Plus the back and neck injury from the car accident.

I have been losing 2-3 pounds average a week. Some weeks I have only lost 1 or sometimes I lose 4! (4 this week!!) I took a 3 week break from all dieting and ate what I wanted at Christmas and 2 of those weeks I lost .5 pound each week. the third I lost nothing (but, I didn't gain either) I was shocked completely!! I could not believe whith what I had eaten that I could lose anything. I fully expected to gain. Just goes to show that when you lose at a healthy and slow pace you will be able to enjoy yourself and not have to worry about gaining a few pounds when you have a fun day and splurge.
My husband and I went to Red Lobster for dinner last week. I expected to go to Olive Garden. I looked up the local menu online. I figured out the points plus values of the food on the menu and chose a good sensible dinner that also looked really tastey and wrote it all down. I even planned on not eating the full entree, only half and taking half home to eat for lunch the next day. I was prepared and planned and did everything right. We get to Olive Garden and it is packed. We could not even find a parking space. We saw that Red Lobster was full too but had less waiting time, it was 7:30pm and we were starving. I was a little panicked because I had not prepared for Red Lobster. But I thought, Oh well, I want to enjoy myself. It is our 16 year Anniversary afterall.
We went in and waited for a table. It was 8pm by the time we were seated. We were ravinish. I had my trusty phone with me and I started looking up Red Lobster menu items on the Weight Watchers site. I found some smart choices and that is what I ate. I DID enjoy myself and ate things I love too. I had stuffed mushrooms with lots of cheese and lobster claw and crab in them.(Hubby ate half of the mushrooms) I had 2 (yes two) of the cheddar bay biscuits and a succulant Lobster tail with real butter to dip it in. I ate a salad with ranch dressing. It was soo good. I had to bring the baked potato home to eat the next day as I was stuffed after the Lobster tail. I knew I was ok with all that food because I made a smart choice with the Lobster Tail and I also made sure to exercise a lot more this week to give myself lots of activity points to use. I saved up my weekly's to use. I did well, stayed on my points and lost 4 pounds that week. I was happy. :D Weight Watcher's is not just a diet. It is a lifestyle change. It is a way of teaching you how to eat all the foods you love without saying "you can't eat this or that" and still lose weight and then maintain after. I feel like I eat a lot of food. When I am able to start to maintain I will have to eat more that I am now. I KNOW that I can maintain this for life.

Anyway, I am down 33.2 pounds and have another 27.8 to go!! I can do this!!

I love Holidays!!

I love the Holidays. I love to decorate my house and bake and have friends and family get togethers. It makes things hard when I am not living so close to family anymore but I make the best of it. We have some terrific friends where we are now and that makes it nice.

Christmas may be over for now but My anniversary is coming up on Friday so I decorated my facebook page with hearts and pink!! hehe. I am also searching Pinterest for fun Valentines ideas for the kids. I can't wait to make some fun goodies for the kids to bring to school. We will probably make some home-made Valentine cards this year. I found some great ideas that are cute and economical. :) I will take some pictures after we have made them.

Well, off to watch Seseme Street with my toddler and then get my treadmill on!! ;)

 
My 1960's version of my tree. :D

 
A friend suggested doing this to my photo.

 
Our beautiful Christmas tree 2011. I touched the photo up a bit. i love the "old" effect. Classic and nastalgic. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Chia for Health - Dr. Weil

Chia for Health - Dr. Weil

E-Mealz!

I recently decided to do what is suggested by Dave Ramsey (of daveramsey.com) and try out E-Mealz. E-Mealz is a site that For $5 a month, E-Mealz will provide a weekly meal plan tailored specifically to your store & based on your store’s sale ad, helping you plan delicious meals using ingredients that are on sale. You can get a low fat meal plan or a meal plan for 2 or a family or vegetarian, gluten free, Portion control, low carb.. the list goes on!! It is super cool!! Most of the recipes are super easy & pretty fast too. (The biggest downside is that E-Mealz currently only does store-ad specific lists for Publix, Kroger, Wal-Mart, Aldi, & Ralphs, but they do provide an “any store” option too)

I love the meal plans! I am so busy these days with a child in middle school and a child in 5th grade and a 2 yr old.... sports and doctor appointments 3 days a week from a car accident (still!) that I get so frazzled and 5 O'clock comes around and I am scrambling through my stockpile to figure out what to make that is easy and we won't have to eat dinner at 9pm. I love that this site organizes a whole weeks worth of meals for you and uses all the items that are on sale at your fave store that week! So cool! Click the linky thing I have on my blog here to go to the site and sign up! The first three months you can get for only $12.50 that is $4.17 a month by using the code DAVE. So use my link and sign up for three months and try it out!! You will love it!!