Walking On Sunshine

              This week I have been moving myself along. By moving I mean walking. I am somewhat of a packrat. I hold on to a lot of materials from my journey such as WW weeklys and my tracking journals. So while having a bit of a weight loss stand still, I pulled out one of my previous journals. During this journal I was venting about how frustrated I was when I hit a plateau of a 25lbs weight loss. I decided to move a little more. I started by taking some walks in the morning by getting off my bus  a stop or more earlier. First I got off 20 + blocks away from the office. Once I mastered that ( by mastered I meant the length of time was faster and less challenging), I got off the bus the stop before that which was 30+ blocks. When the weather started to break in the spring, I decided to get off the bus 40+ blocks away. This was a slow process that I did not get used to because of the rainy season and then my sprained ankle.
             Well I am at it again. A few times a week I will get off of the bus 40+ blocks away from the office and walk there. Since I am carrying my heavy handbag and a change of clothes it takes about an hour. I had to modify the my bus schedule to catch an earlier bus so that I could clean up and change. But this is worth it. When I arrive at work I have already had a workout. I feel determined and satisfied, not to mention a lot of points on my pedometer. I am grateful for that.

              I went into my weekly meeting I knew for sure that I was going to have a bigger weight loss but the scale had a surprise for me. I gained 1.2lbs. We all know that we should not put a much stock in the scale because it can fluctuate from week to week. I di feel like I was retaining water for two days. That may have been part of it. I had hoped that it wouldn't show up on the scale but it did. I can't say I'm not disappointed. But I also believe in the long run that I am moving in the right direction. As my leader Melanie always says, "the check is in the mail". Check Please!!!

             Some nights I go home and ride my bike or go for a walk around the track to add extra workout. For a couple of nights, I asked my hubby if he would like to go on the walk with me.  Usually he looks at me like I grew three heads but this time he said yes. And not just once but on three different occasions. I have to admit that on Sunday after doing the laundry for hours, I asked him if he would go on a walk. He said yes. I have to tell you that at that moment he helped me because I was exhausted. I had been doing our laundry for hours( I wait until the linen closet is empty before I was linens), and I honestly believe that I would have said I oh well, maybe I won't go out after all.  But because he said yes, it kept me going. I am so grateful to him for that.

THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITY
Tues. all day = 6pts
Wed. all day + walking laps after work = 8pts
Thurs. all day + walking a 5K lap = 10pts
Fri. all day = 2pts
Sat. walking to the movies + 4 miles around the track = 10 pts
Sun. laundry + laps around the track = 10 pts
Mon. 40+ blocks to work + laps around track at night = 9pts
TOTAL POINTS =  55 POINTS!!!
            I have been really lucky the last few weeks and I have been having fun. A few weeks ago, my hubby sent me and the boys to see "Zarkana: Cirque du Soliel". We had a great time. Before the show we did our tourism bit by walking to Rockefeller Center in the rain. Then we went to the LEGO store. I cannot tell you  how much Lego means to me. My BFF introduced them to me when I was a tween and I forced myself to stop playing with them so that I could be a teenager. When Josh was small, I introduced him to Lego and he played with it until he was in high school too. My apartment was a sea of Lego sets from one end to the other and I loved it. Jake does not care for Lego as much as we did. Jake is a rocknroller. Lego requires a lot of dedication. But Jake still loved the Lego Store excursion.  "Zarkana" was wonderful. It's a circus opera without animals. It was beautiful and a beautiful graduation gift to Jake.

FROM NEW YORK TO SEATTLE
2,578.09 miles - 93.11 miles( 3 weeks forth) = 2,485 miles to go

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Tam,Cindy,Josh,Me and Bob

           I have been super busy these days , so I am a little behind in my blogging. I went from chilling out with my ankle propped up on a pillow to trying to into into a great many things. I am grateful to be busy. Last week's topic was about fruits and veggies.  I really do like fruits and vegetables. I seriously think about becoming a vegetarian sometimes. To me it is relatively easy to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet. The way I ate before was what most people tend to do; eat whatever is convenient. But because of the WW plan, I learned to fit in produce in various ways. Before, I never had fruit for breakfast unless it was a banana in cereal. Now I am down right annoyed if I missed my fruitpportunity. I have talked about my usual breakfasts. On most work days I have two egg whites on an english muffin and two oranges. Why two oranges you say? Well why not? They taste sweet and they provide a good amount of fiber. I prefer the navel oranges so that I consume the whole orange. That orange takes a while to work through my digestive system and it makes me feel satisfied until lunch.

             Have you ever had a clementine orange? They are mini navel oranges. They peel very neatly and you can have a few of them. They are also good to add to a salad. Have you added fruit to your salad yet? Well I do when I have a salad for lunch. Sometimes I'll add a tart granny smith apple or some little tart raspberries. I even peeled and sliced some granny smith apples and sauteed them with onions to go with a broiled pork chop.

Jake, Bob, Cindy, Tam and Josh

            I have not fried fish in months. I go to this fish stand in my neighborhood that sells the most gorgeous fresh fish you ever wanted. Sometimes the owner and I talk about what we do to the fish. He sold me some fabulous Basa fillet. Normally I would soak it in egg and then flour and fry it up. But that fish looked so great that I squeeze some limes over it and seasoned it and let it sit in the broiler pan to marinate for about thirty minutes or a workout(whichever comes first). Then I stick that pan under the broiler, limes and all. No oil, no butter, no egg and no flour and it comes out great. The men in my life love it , especially Jake. I didn't think he would touch it but he devours it.  Never underestimate the power of fruit and vegetables.

My sons never fail to crack me up.

           This week, for the 3rd week in a row I lost .2lbs. I know this sounds a little, what's the word? Small- that's the word. But I am okay with it or delusional, whatever. As long as it keeps going down baby. I also scored something totally great. I gained another year of my life. I turned 45 years old. Usually I don't celebrate my birthday much. I am one of those weirdos who go to work on their birthday. But this year my birthday fell on the first Thursday of the month; 5K Day. I got to have a 5K on my birthday. How super is that? Me and my homies and my sons Josh and Jake had a long walk through Greenwich Village and came to our final destination; Peanut Butter & Co. For years I have been hearing about WW's having issues with peanut butter abuse. My I never had a problem with it. I like the occasional peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And thanks to Cindy and Tam, I have found the wonder of peanut butter and banana sandwiches(there goes that fruit again). But having sample the maple peanut butter of Peanut Butter & Co. , I see where this could go downhill. For the first time in my life, I could easily see myself eating an entire jar with a spoon. Do not clutch your pearls. I did not do that. I forced myself to put the jar in the cabinet.  All in all I had a great birthday celebration.

We made it to the finish line.

THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITY
Tues. - all day = 7pts
Wed. 0 pts
Thurs. all day + 5K = 15pts
Fri. all day = 3pts
Sat. all day = 3pts
Sun. all day + walking 4 miles = 10pts
Mon. morning walk 46 blocks = all day = 9pts
 TOTAL ACTIVITY POINTS = 47pts

Me, Cindy, Tam and Pete

          Now that the doctor said I can get back into things I found that my body and my will power are not what they used to be. But let's face it, when I was eating myself to almost 300lbs I wasn't exercising at all. When I had to get real, I started moving. When I wanted to prove to myself that I could do more, I pushed myself a little more each time. So that is where I am right now. I am trying to walk a little more. A little farther. A little longer. And then I will get back to the new me. I will leave a little more fat on the pavement and a little less on me.

Until You Come Back To Me(That's What I'm Gonna Do)

        Much ado has been made about my gaining weight. And all of it has been done by me. I have been huffing and puffing about being pissed off about gaining. But guess what? It's all a lesson. When you go on a trip, you take pictures of the beautiful (and sometimes ugly) things you see along the way. If you read my blog, you know that I take pictures all the time. It's how I pass moments in my life. It's one of the personality quirks I inherited from my father. I know this by the unbelieveable amount of baby pictures of me in various outfits and poses before he lost his life to cancer. And camera film and development was not cheap back then. I take these pictures because I want to relive those moments.
        The same can be said of my long weight loss journey. I need these setbacks and I need all of these 3-Ultimate trackers( and composition notebooks) to remind me of where I came from. Maybe I was doing well for long periods of time and maybe I was doing very funky for some periods of time. The important thing is that I am going to keep on trekking along. There were many times in my life where I lost weight. I starved, I crashed and ate weird combinations of food. And the weight came back. Sometimes more weight came with it. Then I would give up, eat my troubles away etc.. The last time I did that lasted almost seven years. SEVEN YEARS! Who does that? I did it. But I find that because WW is a slow process, I start getting used to the idea that it is indeed a slooooooow process. I lost 48.2lbs before and I will again and then some.
        Oh 6.4lbs that I gained back, as Weight Watchers is my witness, I will never go hungry again. You will come back to me one day and you will bring your friend 50lbs with you. So I'm gonna write down the foods that I consume; good or bad. I will put one foot in front of the other until I am the ultimate warrior I once was. I'm gonna go to the Tuesday Night Happy Hour meetings with Melanie. And I'm going to have the meeting after the meeting with my WW homies. I'm gonna tell you 6.4lbs, until you come back to me that's what Im gonna do.
       I don't want you to think I am totally neglectful. Things have been totally busy lately. Little League playoffs, graduation, office parties and holidays make it seem like I forgot. But I didn't. I am not back to my old workout self ( the theory is true. when you stop exercising, it's hard to get started). But last week the doctor said that I could get back into things little by little so I have being doing some biking. Here is some activity points from the last two weeks;
LAST WEEK  ACTIVITY
Tues -all day = 6pts
Wed - all day = 4pts
Thurs. grad day = 0pts
Fri.  - all day = 4pts
Sat. - all day = 7pts
Sun.- biking = 16pts
Mon. - biking = 12pts
TOTAL = 49pts

THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITY
Tues. - all day = 7pts
Wed. - biking = 16pts
Thurs. - all day = 5pts
Fri. all day = 2pts
Sat. - biking = 16pts
Sun. - all day = 2pts
Mon. all day = 3pts
TOTAL = 51pts
               This weekend I went to a Going Away BBQ for my oldest and dearest friend. I was a little worried about going over board with the eating. So worried in fact that I mapquested the walk to her house so that I could get in a workout. My oldest son Josh did not attend. So I took advantage of my biker son Jake. I mapquested the driving directions to her home and they totaled 3.06 miles. Jake and I rode there and back again on our bikes. As usually I was a nervous wreck going on open roads but we ventured on. The hardest part was not the distance or the road. It was the amount of hills we had to bike. One hill was four blocks long. Jake and I had to get off our bikes for two blocks because we couldn't pump our legs anymore. At the BBQ I did not wolf down as much food as I though. Jake and I split a chicken cutlet, and I had a small scoop of potato salad,and collared greens and two small ribs. Sadly there was no diet soda so I kept it to two sodas . And I did not have a beer. Then before it became dark, Jake and I rode 3.06 miles home( okay so we got a little lost so it may have been a few blocks more). But the important thing is that I worked out the BBQ scare by adding exercise and being cautious about my intake. There will always be parties and holidays. And yes sometimes I will indulge. But it's not the end of the world.
             This week I lost .2lbs. I'm gonna tell you 6.4lbs, the changes I've been going through. Listen you. Until you come back to me that's what I'm gonna do.
Please enjoy some pics of Jake's Graduation.

Jake graduates 5th grade

Josh and Jake

Jake and his dad

Me, Jake and Darren