Kakorrhaphiophobia

the fear of failure or defeat.

          Well folks, it's that time! Tomorrow I head to Hawaii for two blissful weeks. These two weeks will NOT include calorie counting, and I will not be weighing myself. So this should be interesting. I am a little nervous that when I get back I will have gained 5-10 pounds and lost the progress that I have made thus far. The biggest fear that I have is that I am going to get back into the pattern of eating unhealthily and not be able to stop myself when I get back from just going ahead and pigging out on some of my various favourite, really bad-for-me foods. I hope that I have the strength to enjoy the vacation and all of it's lovely meals out at restaurants etc. but that I then have the strength to come back and start right back up where I left off, and continue to diet.
          I want to be 130 by the start of summer (so by July 1st lets say). That gives me lots of leniency for some failure, and it gives me lots of time to lose the weight... but it will also mean that I am so close to the weight that I was at my wedding. By mid summer then I should be able to fit back into my wedding dress, and hopefully late summer, I can wear it again for a "trash the dress" session. I don't mean actual trash like some brides do, I just have always wanted to do a session say in the water, or in a junkyard, or something! Just get some really cool, unique images of me in my wedding dress. It will also be a celebratory treat, because that means I made it back to that place, a time in my life that I actually felt good about myself again. Then everything after that will just be bonus!
          Speaking of getting closer to that weight. I have some great news! I made it to my Hawaii goal! Here is my Monday weigh in:

Start Weight: 182
Last Weight: 156.4
Current Weight: 154.8
Goal Weight: 100-110

Woot for another 1.6 lb loss. I was actually at 154.4 on Friday and Saturday morning, but Saturday evening I indulged a little (okay a lot) and ate a bunch of high calorie snacks (but did have some fruit and veggies too - they have to count for something right?!) haha. Anyway, I am so happy and feel really accomplished making my goal. Now it will be a goal of mine to try my hardest not to get out of control, and maintain my weight. I am hoping with all the exercising we will be doing that it will help in the not gaining department :)
          I will certainly be blogging from Hawaii. Maybe once or twice, maybe every other day, we will see how I feel! Until then <3

Juramentum

n. An oath

          This is going to be a short post, as I am about to get ready to go to work, but I really wanted to check in because I haven't for a few days, as I am really running out of things to blog about pertaining to weight loss. So I think after I get back from Hawaii and blog about those, then I will more than likely start blogging about various other things, so if you are reading this strictly to learn about my weight loss strategies, than you may be disappointed.
          I chose the title for this blog, because weight loss really is just that - an oath. I have had countless moments where I have really wanted to lose weight, and ever time I put on my pants that were always too tight, I would hate myself a little more and think "man, I really have to lose weight" but never has it actually motivated me to do anything about it. I don't get motivated enough until i tell myself, okay, I need to be healthier and I vow to myself that I am going to do it. Once I have my mind set like this, nothing can stop me and nothing can deter me from my goal. Yes I am going to Hawaii, and I am going to eat out probably at least once a day... but I recognize this and I will without a doubt start right back on healthy eats when I get back. I have made an oath to myself that this time next year I will be at my goal weight, and then I will still be blogging, talking about the struggles of maintaining. Because getting to my goal weight isn't the end of the battle. Being someone who struggles with being overweight, has to recognize that this is going to be lifelong! As tiring as that sounds... it's reality. Anyway, just thought I would share what keeps me going. I respect myself too much to be stuck in this overweight body for much longer. I respect myself too much to break this oath that I have made to myself, and I respect myself too much to put my body through all of the complications of being overweight. That went on to be a little more preachy, and a little more serious than I would normally write, but it is something I feel pretty passionate about!
          With that being said - I have a great weigh in to share with you all! My last weigh in had me at 159.7 and last week during TTOM, I was fluctuating between 158.9 and 158.5 but here are my stats right now...

SW: 182
LWW: 158.5 (.9)
CW: 156.4
GW: 100-110

Yay for hitting the 25lb milestone, and whoot for only 1.4 lbs until I reach my Hawaii goal, and I have a week to do it. I am bound and determined to make this happen!
Here is to hoping everyone has a great week of eating well and working out (something that I haven't been doing at all... but still losing weight because I have been eating so well! (besides pizza and chips at my nephews birthday party, but that is besides the point... btw after eating well for so long - pizza and grease gives me major freaking heartburn, it was not fun!)

I am going to leave you with a picture of the delicious salad that I had for dinner last night, and will be having again tonight. It had the following ingredients
• baby spinach as the base (4oz.)
• skinless boneless chicken breast, stripped (between 3-4oz.)
• marble cheese (about 20 g)
• garlic (.3oz.)
• cucumber (4oz.)
• mushroom (3oz.)
• broccoli (2oz.)
• tomato (4oz.)
• Kraft Catalina Calorie Wise dressing (about 2tbsp) (not shown in picture)

It was totally filling and absolutely satisfying (with only 302 calories!). It is perfect to bring to work with me so that is what I am going to do. Yes I even ate it out of this large stainless steel mixing bowl, ahaha!
Have a great day everyone!

Kamerad

sentence substitute - A shout of surrender, used by German soldiers

          Yesterday was a "bad" day for me. Diet wise that is. Otherwise it was absolutely fantastic! See, its that TotM (you can figure it out!) and yesterday was just the beginning of it, so I was somewhat irritable (Glenn can vouch for that), a little bloated, and overall just didn't care. The day started out as usual. I have a good routine going, with eating a good breakfast (to reduce sodium I have stared eating a good mixed berry cereal with skim milk and it is delicious. Plus, who would have thought that the serving size on the box is actually satisfying... I would always just pour until the bowl was filled to the top and dump in a tonne of milk, but it turns out that the serving size fills me up enough to make it to my morning snack, it's fantastic!)

My sister in law's, my brother in law, Glenn, and my niece were planning a trip to Barrie's Winterfest - check out this cute picture of my niece at winterfest (fyi it was just taken with my point and shoot camera, not my good one) ...

so I had even put a couple of Zip-Lock baggies of snacks in there to tide me over until family dinner. All was well until that point. Family dinner. Oh so good, but TOO good. Especially when all you want to do is eat! Instead of limiting myself (as I said, I was in an "I don't care" mood) I ate, and ate, and ate. Not only all of the yummy rotisserie chicken including *gasp* the skin, or the carb filled potatoes, or the absolutely delicious bread with margarine.... but here's the biggy a generous helping of Boston Cream cake. That's right folks, custard, cake, thick chocolate icing, and whipped cream (oh let's not forget the handful of mixed fruit on top.. that has to count for something right?). Don't get me wrong, I also had some delicious cauliflower, and broccolini (a mix between broccoli and kai-lan, chinese broccoli) and I probably could have even stayed within my calorie range, but didn't purely because I shouted "KAMERAD" to my cravings and just went with it. You will be happy to know however, that when I weighed myself this morning, the scale hadn't changed from the small increase I had yesterday morning (the water weight from that TotM) but still, I felt slightly guilty at the end of the night, and then really guilty when I started feeling nauseated, and was woken several times throughout the night because my stomach hated what I had done to it, and I did not feel well at all! My body was not at all used to the sheer volume of food I had consumed in one sitting! What I learned big time from this event was that I think in the end I am going to have an easier time maintaining as long as I don't let every meal get back to the way it was last night. It was a reminder that I can have one of those meals every once in a while without suddenly gaining 10 pounds, which sounds pretty ridiculous when I say it but in my head that is kind of what I am thinking.

So I vowed to make today better, and better it has been. Much, much, much better! My sister in law Jacquie, being the deary that she is, got me a couple of coupons for free classes at the gym she frequents. She asked me to come along to one with her today, and I am so glad that I did. Today was my first time trying out a Zumba class. It was a tonne of fun and the hour just flew by! I then came home, had a bite to eat, and thanks to my awesome co worker lending me her Hip Hop Abs DVD's, I did a 30 minute workout with Fat Burning Cardio workout on there. It was fantastic, I still feel some burning in my abs, but it was pretty intense when I first finished! I am on track with my eating, and about to run to the grocery store to pick up some more veggies, I go through veggies so quickly (and by my previous post of my dinner I am sure you can see why!) I think when I get back from Hawaii, I will be looking into getting a membership at a gym so that I can attend some classes on a regular basis. This is a routine I would like to establish, and continue with even once I have reached my goal weight. I think this is the most realistic for me anyway, because I just can't see myself working out on my elliptical a few times a week once I am done losing the weight. Could be a big reason why I didn't continue working out last time after I had lost a lot of weight and then gained it all back. I think with classes I will be more likely to stick with it and continue, simply because they are so much FUN!

I am not going to do my Monday weigh in due to some water weight, and I know it's water weight because my rings are tighter and harder to get off. I will wait it out another week or so and weigh in then. Until then I am just going to keep plugging along, and hope for the best. I hope everyone on this journey is doing well!