Weight loss Saturday-a day late!

Hey! Thanks for all of the birthday wishes yesterday! I'm officially 27 years old now!

I have a ton of photos and fun to share with you but I felt the need to weigh in via the blog.

I weigh the EXACT same as last Saturday. Even after indulging on my birthday (can you say creme brulee and wine?) I'm honestly shocked that I didn't gain!

Andy and I tried to run today but my body wasn't in the mood. We ended up walking 3 miles. We ran a little bit but not much (less than a mile.) I really need to sign up for a race so I can motivate myself.

We didn't make it to this round of Project Foodbuzz. I am bummed but also relieved! I got to enjoy my birthday and not stress over what to cook!

Hopefully I'll see a loss next week!

Weigh-in #1

Hey everyone!

So I weighed in yesterday and was down another 2.6 pounds. I'm pretty excited but also nervous since I tend to struggle after the first couple weeks. Wish me luck this week!

We'll be back with more updates soon. We saw Anthony Bourdain last night!

More on Amanda's weight loss

Weight loss. It's a battle for me. Andy too actually but I think it's better for him to share his story on his own. (Hint, hint Andy...)

Unlike my husband, I am still struggling to lose the weight. I gained fifty pounds between high school and my first couple years of college. One of the reasons I gained so much weight had to do with a medication I was on. It was terrible. I come from a relatively thin family and it was hard to see myself fitting in with everyone else.



That's me on the left, the day after I graduated high school. Ugh. High school. I had a tough time during my junior and senior year. A lot of kids teased me about my weight gain, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin and I seriously hated how I looked.

I lost a bunch of weight before my high school graduation so I'm not at my highest weight there. I wish I could tell you that I stayed at a healthy weight for a while but I gained most of the weight back right away.



My weight went up and down all the time.



I gained 15 lbs before our wedding. I tried to lose weight but I was juggling a full-time job, 12-14 units of undergraduate work, wedding planning, family drama and wedding dress stress. I'm a stress-eater.



Despite the weight gain, I still felt beautiful and loved on my wedding day. Andy cried when we had our first look. How can I feel bad about myself when someone loves me so unconditionally?



(Love ya babe)

But I felt bad. I felt horrible.



So we started running. Running a race with your loved one is so motivating. Exercise made me feel strong, got my body fat percentage down and gave me a faster metabolism.



I started feeling better about my appearance but for different reasons. I suddenly stopped caring whether I was "skinny" or not. I care if I am healthy or not. I care if I am strong or not.

So I signed up for Weight Watchers. Again. For the third time. This time I'm doing it for the sake of the weigh ins. Weekly weigh ins keep me on track. I don't obsess over calories. I track my daily eats in a notebook aiming to get a higher percentage of protein and less carbs because that works for me. I don't rule any foods out. Forbidding foods will only make this struggle harder for me.



But my portions sizes are down. I'm relying on whole foods to keep my body fueled. I'm going to physical therapy to help strengten my body and get me back into the running scene. (I'm hoping to run a 5k with Andy, my sister and her boyfriend at the end of October.)

I weigh-in every Saturday. Last Saturday, they told me that I had lost 3.2 lbs! I was pretty shocked considering what I ate. I didn't sacrifice anything, instead I added in more vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and fruits. I moved a little more by running a tiny bit, doing HIIT workouts via Jillian Michaels or Jackie Warner dvds, stretched with yoga and obeyed my PT by doing all of the lower body exercises required to heal my knee and IT band. The reality is, eating less and moving more works! I'm hoping to continue to lose every week even if it's only half a pound. I don't want to lose weight in a rush, just to gain it all back. This is a lifestyle, not a diet. I firmly believe that making healthy living a lifestyle has helped me in a major way. As an educator, I also believe that I set an example for young people and that living a healthy life and loving myself helps others as much as it helps me. I don't want people to see this hungry, lazy girl losing weight with the newest diet gimmick. No thanks.

So yeah, my approach to weight loss might not be very original but it's what I need in my life right now. I'd love your support as I go through this journey for what feels like the millionth time. I want to share my success, my fears, my failures and my joy. I'll report every Saturday with the good, bad and ugly. And progress pictures! If you want to know exact numbers, e-mail me and we'll talk.

What do you think of my approach?

Weight loss and exercise

I haven't talked about my weight loss goals in a while. I guess I just didn't know whether or not it was appropriate for me to share those goals in a public forum like this. After some thinking, I'd decided to share my action plan with you. (I'd love to hear your feedback as well.)

-I'd like to lose at a healthy pace while NOT counting calories. Counting calories becomes troublesome for me. I am just not a numbers person.

-To combat this one of my friends suggested journaling what I eat daily. She said not to write down calorie counts but to write down whether it was a protein, whole-grain, dairy, fruit or veggie serving. Eventually I'll work with a nutritionist on this. Ideally my goal is to cut back on portions.

-As you know, Andy and I attended a few food truck and beer festivals (which have yet to be blogged) I think we did a decent job at keeping our portions down. I'm pretty proud of that!

-Since I can't run yet, I am planning on getting my cardio in via Jillian Michaels Shred DVDs. (I own a ton of workout DVDs so I'll change it up. She has a kickboxing one that I love.)

-I'm working on yoga and weight-lifting as well. I love both. I think my body really responds to any kind of strength training. I do all of my yoga via DVDs since my schedule is too weird for taking classes.

In short, I'm hoping that journaling and increasing my exercise will help. I don't want to give myself a goal of X amount of pounds in X amount of time because that has NEVER worked for me. I want to be healthy and strong, not skinny. I don't want to talk about my weight loss obsessively or hate myself for eating ice cream. Hopefully this plan will work for me. We'll see.

P.S. Andy and I started a Facebook Fan Page! Please like us and let us know if your blog has a fanpage so we can like it back! Two Boos Who Eat Fanpage

May Goals

I meant to post this yesterday but my 60 page unit plan took over my life. It happens.

I am so proud of myself for sticking with a workout program, attempting Body for Life and eating better. At the same time, there is always room for improvement. My overall goal is improving my health, toning up, and getting to a healthy weight. Ideally, I'd love to love 30 lbs before 2011 comes along. I'm not going to obsess over that number too much. It's a number my doctor and I agreed on and it will happen eventually! No rush on the time.

Body for Life is great for me and I really like it but I want to get my portions down to a some what normal range. So I've decided to start counting weight watcher points again. I'm going to continue with the BFL way of eating and the HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts but just try to get used to smaller portions (and higher quality food) again.

I want to cut back on artifical sweetners, fake foods and non-organic produce. I'm in a good place financially compared to last year and I really think it's worth it for me to buy organic. I realize not everyone can do this but I live in California, about 15-30 miles from farm country. I think this is an important move for me.

My goals for May?

*Run 50 miles. Andrea introduced me to Daily Mile and I will be logging my runs on there. I want to slowly increase to more 4 and 5 mile runs while working on improving my endurance for a 5k. My next race will be in early June.

*Count WW points. I am not sure how it all works now so I'll have to go online and check it out. I want to get the right amount of points, use flex points and activity points if that still exists.

*Go out to eat WAY less. We have a trip to Anaheim to see Ben Folds and go to the Disneyland Food & Wine festival but other than that May should be pretty tame.

*Once school is finished, spend time trying new recipes. I'm definitely plateauing and in need of a change up.

*Cross train with higher weights. I started with 5lb dumbbells and am currently using 8lb dumbbells. I want to start using 10lbs at the end of May.

*Lose 5-7 lbs. I am not going to obsess over this one. I will be weighing in every Monday and logging it on Sparkpeople.


Other than that, I plan on continuing to work on my health and happiness. I have paid off 75% of my debt, almost finished my first semester of the teaching credential program and will look into a graduate program this summer. I also have plans to reread some classics this summer but I'll update you with that in June.

What are your goals for May?

Pushing through mental blocks

Hi everyone! I need your help. I have a 5k planned for this Sunday. This one specifically if you're interested in stalking me.

Anyway, I am struggling with mental blocks. I can't seem to run a full 3.1 miles. I always have to give myself time for "walking breaks." I don't understand myself. I can run relatively quickly for a quarter mile but then have to start walking. I'd love to run an entire race at a 12 min pace but my body does not seem to agree. It wants to run an 8 min pace for 30 seconds, walk for 1 minute, run again, walk, rinse, repeat. It's totally a mental thing. I struggle to push through and just run!

I burn a decent amount of calories while running. I assume this has to do with my weight. I'm about 5'6 and 30 pounds over my "ideal" weight. It sucks. I work out 5-6 times a week, eat decently (but no where near perfect) and I sleep 8 hours a night. I know all of you new mothers want to slap me. I don't understand why I'm not losing weight. Running definitely hasn't helped me in that department. This is why I decided to try out Body for Life. I'm hoping the extra protein and HIIT workouts will help.

I'm just wondering if burning 500-800 calories during a fairly short run (3-5 miles) is normal at all. I'm beginning to wonder if my heart rate monitor is crazy. How many calories would I burn if I just ran the entire time without any walking breaks?

So I'm going to try to run today without stopping to walk. I have to go on the treadmill since it's rainy and wet out. Wish me luck!

And please give me some advice if you have struggled with this before!

Taking a serious look at my life

I lost a pound this week. Not terrible but not exactly what I wanted. That means I have three weeks to lose seven pounds. It can be done...but the holidays are RIGHT around the corner. How am I going to tackle this?

My plans are to track what I eat down to every bite, lick and taste. I am going to run today immediately after I hit publish on this post for about 45 minutes. After my run, I'll try some of the weight machines at our apartment gym out. Question: Do you weight train before or after cardio?

As for the eats, I could always do better!



The people over at Vitalicious sent me and Andy some vitamuffins and brownies to sample. (For free, I was not paid to write about their product.)



As soon as the box arrived on my doorstep, I froze the muffins and brownies. When I was ready to eat one, I plopped it in the mircowave for 30 seconds.



Then I topped it with light whipped cream, vanilla ice cream (I actually measured out a proper serving size of 1/2 cup) and some caramel. Including the muffin, this dessert ended up at about 300 calories. I think next time, I'll put only half a muffin with my dessert. I was super full afterwards.



I also received these noodles from the folks at Al Dente Pasta. While Andy cooked the turkey italian sausage, I started boiling the water for the noodles. Once the water is boiling, you throw in the noodles for a mere 4 minutes. Our noodles weren't done until about 6 minutes.



Look, there's no way to make a sausage look attractive. (TWSS!) But I digress, I served up the pasta with some tomato sauce, a turkey italian sausage for protein and some roasted asparagus. The flavor of the pasta was great. I love whole wheat pasta but this didn't even taste like whole wheat. My only gripe about these noodles is that they stick together easily. (Maybe operator error?) Anyway the stats for this meal aren't terrible...about 400 total with tons of fiber from the pasta and the sauce.

I am going to a Weight Watcher's meeting tomorrow so I'll post my weigh in stats from that and let you know how it goes. I think it will be good for me to sit through a meeting right before the holidays start. I'm hoping that increasing my workouts and decreasing my caloric intake works for me. Otherwise I'll be one disappointed girl come January 5th.

So tell me, any tips for me? Remember I'm trying to lose the healthy way. No cabbage soup diet, slim fast or mystery maple syrup drinks for me. Less ice cream might help though!

ugh!

Sorry for the lack of posting. I don't have any good food pictures for you because;

1. Due to the Challenge I have been eating a lot of leftovers. Yesterday's eats included an apple, white chocolate wonderful, some hummus, some crackers, pom arils and later dinner out with friends.

2. The dinner out is one of the dinners that I'm not counting towards the $100 total.

3. Andy and I aren't going to grocery shop until after we return from The Foodbuzz Festival

4. I hurt my knee running again. It's not so bad where I can't run but it does need to be iced often. I have been icing 3x a day.

5. I am taking the day off running today.

6. I lost 1.8 lbs at my weigh in last night!!!!!!!! I have 1.4 lbs to go until I reach my first goal of 10 lbs. Woohoo!!!

I will update later. For now I am icing my dang knee. I have a test in an hour, wish me luck!

Finally Weight Loss!!!

I lost 2 pounds at my weigh-in today! finally!!!

I've had a rough couple weeks as you know so I pumped it up with my 5k training plan!

This week's plan

Monday- ran 1 mile
Tuesday-off
Wednesday- 2 miles!
Thursday- I'm hoping to run 1 mile and walk 1 mile.
Friday- 2 miles running and 1 walking. (My first time doing 3 miles!)
Saturday- 45 minutes. I want to see what my mileage is in this time. Sort of a challenge for myself.
Sunday- 1 mile

I'm feeling good. I'm excited to announce the winner of the Chobani Giveaway tomorrow!

PS. I am catching up on Biggest Loser right now. OMG!! CRAZY!!!!

Tuesday's weigh in and running

Hello everyone!

I lost 0.8 at my weigh in last night. I was a little disappointed after losing 1.5 last week. I realize why I didn't lose more, but I still feel like things should be moving quicker! It's been about 12 weeks and I've only lost 5.6 lbs. (I blame the 4 weeks I took off Weight Watchers for my wedding and honeymoon.) I feel back on track and I feel pretty good about it. At our weight watchers meeting, my friend who goes every week with me reached one of her goals of 30 lbs! She is incredibly dedicated to the program and really works her you-know-what off to get where she needs to be. I am so proud of her. I cried at our meeting talking about what an inspiration she is to me.

After the meeting, I went home and watched a teeny bit of "The Biggest Loser." It's hard for me to enjoy that show because I constantly compare myself to the contestants and envy them for their high weight losses. UGH that show makes me mad. Once again, I started to feel bad about myself wishing I could have lost more than just 0.8lbs. (My goal is to lose 30 lbs total.) I had to stop myself from feeling negative and remind myself of three important things.

1. Comparing yourself to others is never a good idea.
2. I haven't been eating as healthy as I'd like.
3. I haven't been working out!

So this week, I aim to start working out with a group. I'm hoping it will make next week's weigh in just a little bit higher!

Talk to you all later,

Amanda

PS. Just for fun here's a picture of Andy and I at our wedding. I can't believe it's almost been three months! Where does the time go?

Weigh-in Day!

Weigh-in Day today was a success! I lost 1.5 lbs! YAY!!


Last night, I had the best dessert! A mini pb frozen yogurt with homemade cookies as a topping. I brought my cookies in a tupperware and carried it in my purse. I got a pumpkin spice misto with the yogurt!



After my weigh-in, I made dinner. I used a bagged salad from Costco and mixed it together. I know, I know...I really try very hard.



With the salad, we had more bell peppers, onions and pollo asado from Trader Joe's. And a glass of homemade sangria!




The chicken with the peppers and onions tasted splendid! I served this on a "salad" plate to help me keep my portion size down.

yum! I am currently obsessed with bell peppers!

How was your tuesday night?

Weigh-in Day! AAHHH

So happy September everyone!!!

Today is my weigh-in day. (I weigh in at Weight Watchers every Tuesday night.) I am blogging right before the weigh-in simply because I want to write about how I'm feeling right now.

Totally freaked. I have not been eating as well as I could. I could blame it on moving and not having my kitchen in order but the real problem is my laziness! I need to get back on track. I'm hoping that I'm just being negative. We'll see in another 30 minutes how it goes.

Today was a repeat day. I had a pluot & a nonfat latte from Starbucks for breakfast, eggplant parm and blueberries for lunch and hummus with flax seed chips for snack. I'm not hungry and I'm not feeling guilty...I just feel FAT today. Blah.

On a sad note, my doctor just told me that I am insulin-resistant. I'm having a blast with that news really. It only took me 3 endocrinologists to find that out. Boo.

Enough whining from me, talk to you later!

so the weigh-in

Wasn't good. I gained!!!!

I had a sad moment but remembered all of the cosmos, wine and beers I consumed while in Las Vegas. Of course I gained after drinking that. I've got to remember that drink calories are empty calories.

Here's to a better week!

Weigh-in Day

I weigh in at Weight Watchers every Tuesday night. (Yes, at night. It's my only option unfortunately.) Every Tuesday morning I stress out about "weigh-in" day. I eat light and drink an incredible amount of water. I literally do everything in my power to make sure I lose weight. But why on just tuesdays? I've noticed lately that I do not try as hard on the other days of the week.

Why am I sabotaging myself? This week was tough. Last Tuesday after my ww meeting, I drove out to Redondo beach to be with Andy. He went to a conference/seminar and I decided to go along. I spent Wednesday and Thursday in the car. I tried to eat healthy but it was a challenge. Friday-Sunday we went to Las Vegas. That was also a challenge. We managed to avoid buffets but I still enjoyed my favorite alcoholic beverage---the Cosmo! According to several websites the average cosmo has 150 cals. I drank 3! Bah!

So excuses aside, I am determined to get back on track. I'm hoping the blog and the dreaded weigh in will help motivate me.

Do any of you do weight watchers? What are your thoughts?

Wedding Dress Weight Loss

I'll be honest. My wedding dress weight loss plan isn't working out as well as I had planned. I haven't been working out nearly enough so I'm not burning off the calories that I'm eating. Bah! With only 113 days left, I'm starting to feel the stress! I need my arms to be ripped! (Or at least more toned!)

I struggle with weight loss because I tend to give up on myself too easily. I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to working out so I try to do short but intense workouts. I'm not sure if that is the answer.

So I turn to you, dear readers!

Do you think I can safely manage to lose 20 pounds by July 5th? Truthfully I have about 30-35 pounds to lose but I don't think I can lose that much by July!

I'm off to run/shred before it's too late! ARGH!!

Any advice you guys have would be greatly appreciated!

Weight loss!

I forgot to mention this but...Andy and I have teamed up with 4 of our friends for a weight loss/healthy living challenge. We're on our second week now. I lost 2 lbs last week! (I'm trying to lose 20-30)

I'm stoked! Having a challenge motivates me so much. That and the beautiful wedding dress I am planning on wearing soon! Everytime I feel like over-eating or not working out, I remind myself of summer. ha!

That said, I definitely plan on indulging my tastebuds in Italy.

What motivates you to workout?