Where does it come from?!

So when I weighed in Wednesday I was feeling pretty good but still cautious as I had felt good about weigh ins in previous weeks too. I actually lost 2.6 pounds. I was so excited. I went from the highest weight (2/13 weigh in 201.2) since starting WW the first week of Jan to the lowest weight (2/20 weigh in 198.6) all in one week. Woah! I was so excited. I lost!!! And it was more than tenths of a pound!
I was happy and moved on not really thinking of what I had done to do better other than knowing I was being more strict on my points tracking.

So this morning I decided to hop on the scale again. Im pretty well addicted to weighing but have been doing good only weighing once a week but today I wanted to weigh. I took my glasses off as always because they might weigh a few ounces. So I heard the scale beep and I squinted to see the screen. OMG! I grabbed my glasses and looked again. I saw it right 196.8. Down another 1.8 since Wednesday?! You have to be kidding. What's happening to make it work?

I began to go through what I've done different.
-aiming for 100 oz of water a day instead of 64.
-eating more fresh fruit
-leaving Cheerios off my breakfast menu

Would any of these things make such a difference alone or is it the three together?

My exercise has lessened since I have been having lung issues with this virus in my chest that I wish would go away. I've been mainly just making sure I get in 10,000 steps most days.

So what is it?! I know ill keep up the water and fruit ect. The Cheerios part got me to thinking. I've been thinking about an researching a gluten free diet. Have I reduced my gluten unintentionally? I'm truly not even sure about that.

So I'm not sure what has changed but I know ill keep going. Can't wait for Wednesdays weigh in!

So the where did it come from part...

When you lose weight do you ever thing about where the pounds came from? Belly? Arms? Hips? Legs? Face?

I always picture the model of 5 lbs of fat and in this case over the last ten days I've lost 4.4 lbs. almost that full 5 lbs. so that amount of fat is gone from my body. But from where. In that thinking I can't help but be excited to hit 5 and 10 lbs because at 10 lbs ill surely notice a difference. Yay!

So last week before my successful weigh in I laid in bed one night calculating where I would be weight wise on certain important dates (ex: spring break, last day of school, color run day, ect) if I lost at an average rate of 1.5 lbs per week. I have it all listed out each week in my notes in my phone. This allows me to set short term goals. For example. At that rate I should be down to 192 by spring break. 186 on the day of the Nashville half and 180 by the time School lets out 175.5 on our fourth anniversary. This gives me a vision for where I'm headed and short term goals. It gives me hope that it can be real. I have a space next to each week to place my actual weight to see when I'm ahead like now and when I'm on track or falling behind. I know I will see all three of those as it is calculated on a 1.5 lb average loss per week. Some weeks will be not as good where some will be awesome.

I can't wait to see how this goes. I pray that I will continue losing. It's like something has lined up. Still haven't figured it out but in thankful. It's been years since I've had a loss this good. Seriously.

So yay! I hope everyone's weekend is great! How do you set goals? Do they help you?

Saturday morning thoughts

So I'm sick on this Sat morning. I got sick last week but it was the type of sick where you feel good by 9:00am. But them Thursday I woke up with no voice and chest congestion. I've had a fever around 102. Lots of fun. So I'm totally hanging out doing nothing at home today. My hubby went to the farm so I have somewhat of a desire to clean while Im here alone. We'll see.

Here are some topics I mentioned that I was going to talk about.

Gluten:
So I've thought a few times about the benefits of going Gluten free. It's always caught my attention because it is suppose to be good for skin and for reducing belly fat (I need some serious reduction in that area). From everything I've seen the way you know if you are sensitive to gluten is simply by trial. Seeing if symptoms improve with the elimination of Gluten from your diet. I guess if you eliminate it and nothing changes your not sensitive. Then at my last cardiologist visit the Nurse Practitioner that always starts my appointments suggested that I read Wheat Belly and that trying a gluten free diet might prove to be helpful for me. She is awesome and takes great interest in nutrition. I love chatting with her.

So I went to KMEA (my music educator state conference) and when I returned home and the last day I was there my skin was all broken out yay for adult acne! That is about the time I was researching Gluten free diets and what contains gluten I had always been afraid it was basically no carb which I am not interested in. I not only learned that there are carbs that are gluten free but that malt vinegar is high in Gluten due to the Barley. Who knew? Really?

Well guess what I ate THREE times in Louisville? Fish and Chips and of course malt vinegar. Not sure why but Louisville has awesome pub restaurants. So it hit me. I had maybe an unusual amount of gluten and an acne breakout. So I think I definitely need to try going Gluten free. I can combined that with weight watchers very easily. I haven't started though because I'm trying to research and know the dos and don'ts before I start so I can do it correctly. If anyone who reads my blog has info or advice on this topic please share. I'd like to go Gluten free by March if not sooner. I figure Ill try it for one solid month and see if there are any changes unless my research indicates a different time frame.

Kettle Bells: when Chad was my trainer I used to do a lot of kettle bell work. So my sweet hubby bought me the new Jillian Michaels kettle bell set. I used it early this week and loved it. It comes with an instructional DVD from Jillian but it has a lot of downtime. It's not really a workout video. I need suggestions for good kettle bell videos. Doesn't Bob Harper have one?

Races:

So I have yet to decide if I'm going to run in or be a spectator at the Country Music Half in April. (My brother and sis in law are running) There are a lot of factors in my decision:
Am I ready?
Do I have time to get ready?
The day before I have some work things that I missed last year in order to register on time. Do I want to miss it again?
Etc. ill decide soon. In my brothers words "you better get to deciding"

I did a 5K in Dec and I feel that Im at a point where I can just up and do 5Ks on a whim. I'm still not fast so I might want to decide to work on my 5K time. However I was so encouraged by a WKU long distance track team member that I met at a jewelry show I did yesterday. We all got to talking about running and I asked her what her 5K time is. It's like 17 mins and some seconds. Nuts! I shared my time of 40+ minutes. She said "hey it's just great that you do it. No matter what your time is". That made me happy. She probably didn't know what her statement meant but for someone so good to encourage someone like me meant something.

So upcoming 5Ks I am doing.
March 23rd: 5K that my gym puts on to raise money for Courageous kids. Running that with my cousin I think.
June 8th : Color Run with co workers.
July : I'd like to run the Trooper Sunset again. It was my first ever and it's a fun night time run.

So I have plans. Now to keep them and run to be prepared.

Weight Watchers:

It's going fine. WW is working super well for my cousin Tracy! She's lost a lot of weight since Jan 1. Go Tracy. She's being a huge motivator for me.

My friend Nola is also doing good. She had a great week this week. She and I are accountability friends for WW. We text when it's hard or when we weigh.

Nola got more strict on herself this week and had a great week. Tracy and I were talking about how up and down I am. She said "I've been really strict".

Common idea. Strict. I'm not strict like I should be. It's not hard to be strict on WW it just takes determination and dedication. So I'm utilizing my sickly three day weekend to make a better plan for myself to be more "strict" and disciplined. I truly believe that if I get to losing that it will keep coming off.

So here's to better planning.

A shout out to Karie and Kim for helping me with WW with ideas and such too.
I promise all 4 of you ladies that Im going to get better at it!

Now back to my hot bath and lazy sick Saturday!

Here are some pictures of my weigh ins so far with WW. I need to see some more negatives and less plus signs.

So much to say...

I haven't blogged in a bit. I keep thinking about things I want to blog about and then I don't set aside the time to blog. Work has been very busy recently. I need to blog for me though. It keeps me going.

So here are a few topics I need to catch up on:

Traveling:

I went to my brothers house for my nephew's second birthday. We had a blast and I have to say his house may be one of my favorite travel spots because it is such a healthy trip every time. Sometimes we run races, my sis in law always cooks good veggies and healthy lean meats, and there are always health conversations. This time they introduced me to Jillian michaels 30 day shred workout. OMG. Tough! I burned 160 calories in 20 min! I also got to log a lot more flights of stairs on my fitbit because they have stairs in their house. I played grocery store with my nephew and helped him with his new piano attachment for his iPad we got him. I drove home with a single cake ball in a container for my hubby and never touched it. Yay.

Then I had a work trip to Louisville. Every single meal was eaten out including the turkey dog I bought from a street vendor. Felt like that was a good choice over a hot dog or beat. Still haven't had that weigh in yet (tomorrow morning)

Fitbit:
It's going well. Most days I walk 6000 steps just in my teaching day. Crazy! I struggle to get in stairs because my life is very flat. Seriously! My biggest day was 18,866 one day on my work trip I KMEA in Louisville.

Now Im about to fall asleep and sleep is important. So I will finish these thoughs with these topics:

Gluten
Races
Kettle bells