Baby Can You Stop The Rain

              So it's another rainy evening in New York. I am so over the rain. Jake's little league game was called on account of rain. I feel so sorry for him because tonight's game was a make up game for another rain day.  I am working on my recommitment to my weight loss journey. I never stopped being on the journey but I did delay it a little. Sometimes you get lost on the way. Then you dig out your trusty map and try to get back on course. After this week's Tuesday Night Happy Hour meeting, me and a few of my WW homies stayed behind for a "getting started" meeting. This is for the newbies to learn how to work the program. As it turns out, some of us "not so newbies" to need to get started again.
              We reviewed the importance of power foods and good health guidelines. I have been on many different diets before but this time on WW I learn more about the importance of balance. Part of this balance are the Good Health Guidelines. This consists of all the things that will help you on your way to a better body all around. It's cool to be thin but in the long run it is far better to be healthy. Let's start with food.
1)you should eat five servings of fruits and veggies every day. For example, today I ate two oranges with my breakfast, for lunch I had asparagus and a golden apple with my pasta.  For dinner I ate a baked sweet potato and cabbage. Later I will have a banana. It's easy to add up to at least five servings if you add some to every meal.
2) whenever possible go for the whole grains. When I started my journey I had an me vs them theory with my family. It was exhausting both my time and money. I switched my family to whole grain bread, whole grain pasta and brown rice. Yes it tastes a little different at first but that's because you're addicted to the white stuff. There is nothing wrong with white stuff but today's products have changed and they are tasty. Give them a try .
3)Take a multivitamin. Your body needs the extra help to process you intake and to keep you in balance for all the fun activities you do.
4) drink plenty of water but beware the times that you drink it. It can keep you running back and forth to the bathroom.
5) try to be active. A little at a time at first.Rome was not built in a day.

my bike Pinky Tuscadero

           I believe in being active whenever possible. I am currently on an activity slow down due to my sprained ankle. But my doctor said that I could try biking. I have never been so happy to hear that biking should be okay for me to do right now because I am beginning to get cabin fever. I also like to include Jake in the biking because it's easy for children to have less activity during the school year so. He loves his bike as much as I love mine and he loves the time he gets to spend doing bike adventures with Mom. Yesterday, was my work from home day and Jake had baseball practice at six o'clock pm. So we got our bikes out to ride to the field. Due to the new laws in New York, adults have to ride in the street. So Jake rides on the sidewalk and I ride close to the curb so that I can keep and eye on him as well as learn to tolerate riding with traffic. I have to tell you that I get a little nervous with the buses and trucks. Yesterday a truck stayed on my tail almost the whole ride to the field. He was probably more nervous about hitting me than I was about staying out of his way.
         When we arrived at the field, Jake started practicing with the team and I decided to explore the bike path near the field. I don't know exactly how long it was. I am guessing about a mile. I rode around it ten times. It was wonderful. My legs were peddling away. It felt so great. Please take a look.

the Pehlam Bay

the year of my birth

me pumping my legs

this sign indicates the bike path

Jake practicing with the team

After my laps around the bike path I took time out to take pictures of Jake and his team mates practicing. I also took time out to drink a bottle of water and have my snack; an orange. How's that for power foods. After a late practice, Jake and I took our ride back home before it gets too dark. I need to invest in so bike reflectors now that I am out in the traffic. All in all it  was a good day.

my healthy snack; one orange and a bottle of water. yes that is my recycled Brother Jimmy's BBQ container.

Jake rides with his baseball gear on his back

the winding road home

more leg pumping

eek! traffic

riding while keeping an eye on Jake

Do It Again

               This week's meeting topic is about tracking. When I am in control, tracking is my friend. I like to double track. This means I track online using Weight Watchers E-Tools as well as on paper. I like the online tools because it automatically calculates the amount of points you consume each day. It can also help you calculate how many points something is worth which comes in handy when you are trying to plan what you are going to eat in advance. Tracking in adavance helps a lot of people. A few of my WW homies have had real success in breaking through a weight loss stall. Imagine being able to track what you plan to eat days in adavance. I cannot do this. For one thing me and my family rarely eat out or order in. That is a luxury for us. Most of the time I know what we are going to eat because I purchase most of the same foods that keeps our budget on track. But let's say, someone treated me to lunch and that this lunch was worth more points than my usual lunch. Now I can sit down with the tracker and figure out how many points dinner will go into bonus points or figure out how to make my dinner plate lighter that night.
              Paper tracking is also a wonderful thing. After I lost about 20-25lbs, I hit a plateau. I could not figure out what was happening to me. I purchsed one of those black and white composition note books and used it to log not only what I ate but also how I felt in little notes in the margin. For example, work was really hard today or I had an argument with my hubby. Sometimes I made bad choices on those days and I could look back and see that I was medicating myself with food. This may not cure me of eating but it gives me some evidence and some insight as to what behaviors I took to deal with stress, punishing myself with weight gain. It gives you something to think about.
               When I was younger I had Hello Kitty diaries in which I put down my feelings.These rantings of an emotional teenager may seem like silliness but every once and a while I read them and saw some of the silly mistakes I made. I saw how I made some human beings important to me when they obviously were not good for me. I did not want to see that at the time(I probably did not hear it at the time either). I was not ready then. But the resource is still there in my words in my handwriting. I still have some of those diaries. I also still have many of my WW trackers too including ther black and white notebook. Maybe now is the time to read them again.Hmmm. What do I know now that I should have known then?
             This week I lost 1.2lbs. Which is great considering some of the foolish choices I made this week. Of course I did do a little more activity than I have in the past few weeks due to my sprained ankle.
THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITY
Tues.5/31: all day - 4pts
Wed. 6/1: rest day
Thurs. 6/2: 5K Day - 16pts
Fri.6/3: all day - 7pts
Sat. 6/4: all day - 3pts
Sun. 6/5: all day - 3pts
Mon. 6/6: all day + 30 min Walk dvd - 5pts
Total for the week = 38 activity pts

Yesterday Once More

    I have been extremely deliquent lately. I have been off my game and off my blog . That stinks. Part of it was because I was feeling sorry for myself because of my ankle. It is still sprained. We are in week three of an ankle sprain. Part of it is because I am stubborn. I hate forced rest. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that I know what forced rest actually means. Let's see, I am supposed to RICE( rest, ice, compress and elevate). This is hard for me because I work, I am a little league mom and I am the cook.My family is great but they really can't do it all. I am super Carin. I am supposed to do it all.
      To quote from Spiderman, "with great power comes great responsibility ". No truer words were spoken. Yes I am the big cheese at home but sometimes I am not the big cheese at taking care of the big cheese. I feel pulled in so many directions that I am not sure which way to go. But I do know the way to go. The way is down. Down the scale. I slipped up. I have not been on my game.
        Those little slips sneak up on you little by little. It starts out by one extra chip. Then extra something else. Secret eating. Not everyday but that doesn't matter. I have to get a hold of me.I was a little disappointed for not running the 5K on May 21st. But I did not let it stop me from walking in the the Weight Watchers Walk It Challenge on May 22nd. I took it easy for a few days but then I started to feel trapped by my ankle. I asked the doctor if there was something I could do and he said that I could ride my bike. That was exactly what I did. My son Jake and I took some rides around the neighborhood. It felt so good and so free. I spent a few days riding my bike and attending little league games and I felt great.  I love being able to do things. Fun things. For years, I did not do things that were active and fun because I thought I could not or should not. But once I started my weight loss journey, I realized that I was entitled to do all those things. I realize that buried deep down beneath all of this fat was a woman who could ride her bike for miles and a woman who could jog a 5K.

Me, back on the bike

        So forgive been as I slowly try to get back into things .I will try to be frank about slipping. I have slipped off the cliff and I am now hanging by my fingernails. I am trying to get back up on the ledge. Just imagine at 234lb woman hanging from a cliff from her fingernails. That's me. But also imagine me getting one foot back on the ledge. I will . I did it before.

Jake back on the bike

Me and Jake after a long bike ride