Weigh in Wednesday!

Well today is weigh in day and I went into my Weight Watchers meeting pretty confident since I had worked very hard this week at trying to accomplish some goals I had set for myself. First I wanted to get in at least 300 minutes of exercise for our Srhinkvivor challenge. Next I wanted to cut out my afternoon coffee or skinny latte from Starbucks. It would only cost 2 points but I was wasting those points and I wanted to see if it would help me shed some more pounds. After the disappointing .2lb loss last week I was eager to see how my changes would show on the scale.

Well I must admit when the woman at the counter looked at me in awe and said well you are amazing how much do you think you lost... I replied oh hopefully 2 pounds, (secretly hoping for 3). She grinned and said nope 4.6!!

Need less to say I was ECSTATIC!! I have not lost that much weight in a week since beginning the program. And I know it is not healthy to lose this amount each week. Over the average it all works out. I looked at that little sticker and I just could not believe it. I now am looking into hitting the 170s soon! When I hit 179 I will officially no longer be obese according to my BMI I will only be over weight. I will also weigh less than I have in 10 years!

I was able to rack up 314 exercise minutes this week for my shrinkvivor challenge so I know that helped! This challenge has taught me so much and I learn something new every week! I did my exposed post and it opened my eyes to so much about my own identity and my body. I am so glad I signed up and joined the Sisterhood! 

Intense Workout Running, Elliptical, and a Lesson Learned

Well I had a stressful day today. It was just one of those I should have stayed in bed type of days but obviously I cannot stay in bed since I have a daughter to take care of a job to go to!

Well I went through my day actually without turning to food for comfort. I was tempted a few times I cannot lie especially while at work and walking by the candy aisle.  In the past I would always binge on chocolate when I was stressed. I was the girl who could buy a bag of fun size snickers, or Reese's whatever was handy and eat the whole bag. That was me, the fat girl who just did not care. It would not comfort me in fact it would make me more depressed and worse off than when I had started.

Well since starting this journey I have worked a lot on the emotional eating aspect of changing my lifestyle. It has not been easy I will admit there have been times when I have had a bad day and had a bad snack or gone over my points for the day. The important thing I really realized each time is that I gained nothing but more knowledge from it. I learned that food is just food and it can fuel my body but do nothing to heal my wounds.

So with that I tell you that today I feel I had my break through because for the first time in a long time I did not even have 1 ounce of sugar, I did not go over my points. I came home and I went to the gym.I ran for 2 miles on the treadmill and it felt great. I was all warmed up and ready for my elliptical training. I have noticed since I run in the beginning of my workout it keeps my hear rate up for the rest of my workout and I  burn more calories :)

So I got in 35 minutes on the elliptical machine and it was nice. I kept up a swift pace and manager 2.7 miles on it. After that I came home and did some work with my weights and lots and lots of crunches, squirms, reverse crunches, and push ups. I just kept working and thinking about my stress and sweating it out. And by the end I felt amazing. I was no longer stressed and I just felt calm.

I burned a good amount of calories while I was at it:

So instead of eating these and consuming probably over 764 calories:

I worked my ass off and felt ten times better than I ever thought I could!

All About the Scale!

Well the scale I am referring to is the Weight Watchers food electronic food scale. Now it is not available online from Weight Watchers and I am not sure why, but I found it here on amazon.com. I would not buy it from them I would walk into any weight watchers center and buy one they are always only $40. To find a meeting just go here : find a meeting. 

Why do I love my scale?

I love my scale because I can type in a name of a food and it will weight it and tell me how many points it is in a second. There is no fancy calculations needed my scale does all the work for me. The scale has over 400 foods from fresh fruit, to chicken cooked with skin without bone etc, to every vegetable imaginable. I weigh all of my lean protein to make sure I am staying within my points range.

I LOVE weighing my vegetables because more often than not I am pleasantly surprised at how low the points are for vegetables. For example tonight I was weighing my green beans I had and was ready to count them as 1 point when my scale told me they were zero! I was delighted. It works well for fruit too. Strawberries are amazingly low in points and a cup of strawberries is said to be 1 point but when you cut them and weight them you get more.

The scale is also helpful when you have more than 1 ingredient. The scale has an option where you can add more than 1 food choice at a time and get the points total for it together. The scale can also learn new foods! I had some Tinkaydia pasta that I wanted to make but I wanted to be accurate so I used the enter a new food option on the scale and it worked! Just make sure if you are measuring food that swells as it cooks you wait till it is done cooking to be accurate, a good example is rice. When it is dry it weighs much less but once cooked it weighs more and you have to count it cooked.

The scale is great for me I keep it right on my kitchen counter and it keeps me on track. The scale helps me make every point count. I know exactly what I am eating on a day to day basis when I weigh it. I like to use it as I cook and keep track of new recipe ideas. I weigh my egg whites when I scramble them, my chicken after I cook it, and my fruit for dessert. The scale also has a points calculator built in just in case you do not have yours handy it works.

So do I recommend the scale, absolutely! It has probably been the best tool I purchased myself when I started Weight Watchers 7 months ago. It keeps me on track, tracking my points and making every point count.