Decision

I made a decision to stop tracking my good using weight watchers points and go back to calorie tracking. Back in May when I began eating gluten free I had not had much luck with weight loss. Taking the gluten out was a lot to focus on for a while as I learned the dos and don'ts of gluten. During that time I stopped tracking my points and found a great increase in my weight loss success. I continued my weight watcher recipes and Wednesday weigh ins and one day I realize I was paying my monthly few for the graph/chart that I could screen shot with my progress each week. That's an expensive chart. Funniest part is that I called my good friend who had been accountability partners with me and she pretty much told me the same story. 

I truly believe that removing gluten was one of my puzzle pieces and that calorie counting will be plenty alongside my exercise to help me continue being successful. I'm still following all of my weight watcher friends on blogs, twitter, and Instagram. I think it's fantastic but I couldn't justify continuing. Now I'm on a mission to find a fun and good chart/graph system to track my weigh-ins. 

Speaking of exercise. I haven't done much of that lately. On Halloween I was recovering from leg day with my new trainer who I felt would be good and I got sick. Long story short I have been through an upper respiratory infection, an infection that immitates the flu basically, and have a cough that my doctor estimates will linger for 6-8 more weeks. I have been released to exercise and believe that I may go for an easy run tomorrow on Thanksgiving to see how I feel. Mornings are tough right now. It takes me a few hours to get to feeling ok each morning. I can say that with a virus my doctor suggested good hydration, balanced nutrition and rest. I've been following those directions and it is amazing how much they help. Especially the rest. I've rested more than I think I ever have before the last few weeks. I've now been sick for four weeks. I'm way over it and can't wait to get back in my healthy routine. 

I'll post about Thanksgiving in the morning!

Bloggin' and meeting a reader

I have finally set my blogging reminders on my phone. At the least I'll be blogging on Sundays and Wednesdays if not in between as well. So if you're a regular reader check in on those days. 

I have been sick since Halloween. No exaggeration. That day at school I ran a fever but had too much going on to slow down. I developed a nasty sinus flare up over that weekend that led to a cough. I was so sad because since I removed Gluten I hadn't had any sinus trouble. Whe I finally went to the dr. He assured me it wasn't allergies so the allergy relief from being gluten free was still going. Long story short after antibiotics and a good amount of Mucinex I thought I was better then all of a sudden it hit me like the flu. Fever, aches, sinuses, nausea, ear aches, sore throat, cough again. So I went back to the dr. He thought it wa the flu or mono but both test negative. So his orders after blood work and lots of examination were to rest, take Tylenol, aleve, and tough it out. So tomorrow it's back to work for a two day work week. I've been resting a lot. The best I can. I'm not really one to do nothing. So in the midst of resting I've cleaned my entire house and reorganized/ cleaned out my home office. 

In the midst of these 3+ weeks I've not worked out with my new trainer Greg. I liked working out with him my first two weeks. He really pushed me to my potential. I called to schedule for after thanksgiving and he told me he was moving so I have to get a new trainer. Again. I think I know who I'll end up with. More on that to come. 

So last weekend I was at an event with my husband at his school and a fellow blogger who's fiancé is in our line of work was there with her fiancé. She blogs about her weightloss journey as well.  She is found at talesfromteamawesome.com 

A few years ago at our state conference a few people I knew mentioned my blog and 13.1 training to me when we saw each other throughout my first day there. I met back up with my husband I said I'm surprised how many people have mentioned my blog to me. He said "you have NO idea... A guy I know from home saw me and said 'my girlfriend reads your wife's blog' it was crazy". At that point I found out who she was and started following her in return. She and I didn't know each other or even of each other. She found my blog when a Biggest Loser contestant retweeted my blog. (My favorite part of the story I think) The next year at the conference I got to meet her boyfriend. Now two years later I finally got to meet her. We had the best time catching up with each other and getting to know each other in person. I'm so thankful for that time we spent chatting about runs and tris and biking and eating and doctors opinions etc. It was truly inspirational. 

I am at my lowest weight for the year at 189. I am going to try to at minimum maintain through thanksgiving. 

My next step is to determine what event I'm training for next. When Jessica and I talked we chatted about how having something on our schedule helps us greatly. So I need to schedule something. If I know it helps me I have to do it. 

Sweet snacks 101

So my hubby enjoys something sweet after a meal. Very typical. I can go either way but when he asks "do we have anything sweet" then I want it too. I have a tendency to not have sweets in the house because I have little ability to say no to sugar. I'm an out of sight out of mind type person on this. Last night there were no sweets so tonight I decided to plan ahead. I grabbed a container of cool whip in my way home to make a key lime pie but was planning to leave the crust off and place them in cupcake papers to freeze. 

Got home....

Not enough Nellie & Joes Key Lime juice (find it at your local grocery, it's fabulous... It's from key west. My Mimai family introduce it to us. The mango key lime is awesome too)

To make the recipe. Bummer...

Hmmm. So I decided to make it with te juice I had and then thought it would be way too sweet. So I then decided to cut down the sweetened condensed milk amount. Then thought about the cream cheese left in the fridge and wah-la. A new recipe was born... Key lime cheesecake cups:

(The pan is clean. It's stained by some chocolate batter)

 The measurements are below and they are nuts because it was how much was left of a few of them. 

1/8 cup Nellie's Key Lime Juice

6 Tbsp low fat sweetened condensed milk

8oz container of cool whip

4 Tbsp of cream cheese. 

Mix all ingredients with a handheld mixture. Use a small ice cream scoop to place in papers. 

Freeze.

I unfortunately did not have access to low fat or fat free cool whip this time so the calories will only reduce once I make that change. 

Here are the facts when divided into 10 cupcake papers:

Each 

101 calories

12 carbs

5.2 fat

1.7 protein

3 weightwatchers points

My blogging thoughts from the big cheese wagon

I haven't been blogging as much lately and I believe it's due to the quick posting ability of Instagram. This past week though I was reminded of how beneficial my blog is to me and how others enjoy reading it and how it may help someone else. A friend of my brothers (who is a friend to me as well) has been following my journey via my blog and Facebook since I trained for my half marathon. He  is on a journey to better health as well. He told me when he met me in person a while back how inspiring my blog and my journey are to him. I was reminded of that by him last weekend when I went for a visit. I talked with him about how there is much more I could be sharing and how sharing and knowing I have readers inspires me to keep going. One specific thing we discussed is how I have kept going through  many disappointments in my journey. Many of those disappointments stemming from medical troubles or mysteries keeping me from losing as I wanted to. 

So. I'd like to try to blog regularly. I typically just blog when something strikes me to write but as I said, I think I'm satisfying those strikes with Instagram (follow me there @findtheskinny). So in addition to strikes I'm going to settle on some regular times and set reminders in my phone to stop what I'm doing and blog. I think it will be good for me on many levels. One of which will be just slowing me down sometimes. 

I went back to my doctor on Wednesday. He is very pleased with my weight loss since April. A little more than 10 lbs. May seem slow but my goodness it's success compared to the 3-4 lbs I'd lost and gained a million times the last three years. Though my blood work was great in April he gave me an option to do it again to check on improvements from being gluten free and having lost 10+ lbs. so of course I said let's do it. Who cares about the needle! So I'm waiting on those results...

I'm traveling this weekend with the marching band. Our favorite trip. I had to pack tons of my own food though. I'll post more about that later. 

I dressed in my run gear because were headed to my alma mater and I wanted to reunite with the famous 2 mile loop on campus. Not sure I'll get to though. I don't want to go alone and so far I haven't found anyone who can go along. Still looking.... Oh and we left 2.5 hours late so the 3 hours of downtime is cut way short. 

For now I'm going to get back to "relaxing" on the big cheese wagon!

Stay tuned!

I am totally seeing dots from taking a selfie with a flash on the bus. *see my findtheskinny cooler?*

I won ! Me - 1 , Sweets - ZERO

So I headed to Zumba after school. I had a huge traffic snafu when I tried an alternate way around a long long line of cars at a left turn lane and ended up having to go back across the entire intersection again.... Hard to explain if you aren't local so anyhow. I was a few min late into Zumba class. 

I was so excited for class tonight as my goal was to increase my heart rate and calorie burn from last time. Very soon into class I did something funny up on my toes or jumping I pulled a calf muscle. I tried for a few minutes to go on but it was getting worse. I had to leave. At that time (within about 15 min) I had burned 125 calories so things were headed in a great direction. My average heart rate was up and so was my max from last time. I was bummed. I headed home to ice it.  

So on the way home I was upset and quite frankly wanted something sweet. Really bad! I'm such an emotional eater. That's when the addiction to sweets gets tough. 

So I had a few thoughts. A single scoop of vanilla ice cream from chic fil a. No... Not a good choice. A vanilla come from sonic. No... Not a good choice. I needed to stop in Kroger maybe a Hershey bar from line... NO NO NO!!! Not a good choice. I made myself resist and made it home. It was a true battle with myself. While at Kroger I purchased some vanilla almond milk to make some fake ice cream. I used my sport bottle blender. I mixed 12 oz almond milk, 6-8 ice cubes, 2 TBSP of PB2 (powdered peanut butter w cocoa) and 2 tsp of butterscotch sugar free pudding mix. It tastes like a butterfinger bar when you mix these things in a protein shake but I added the ice and put it off into the freezer to make fake ice cream. (No protein powder of any type)

It is super good! (Maybe less ice next time)

I divided all I made into four servings approx 1/2 cup each. 

Weight Watchers it is 1 point for a serving

Calorie counters. Each serving is 41 calories. (Only 1.5 g fat)

For me this was a huge success! I beat the craving to eat sweets because I was frustrated/ upset. I've iced my calf and its pretty sore. I will see what tomorrow brings. 

I helped get a running group together at work and tomorrow is a running day I sure hope I'm able to run tomorrow! 

Woohoo!

So I had a great weigh in on Wednesday losing 2 lbs landing me at 191.8. This morning I hopped on the scales for a midweek weigh in. 189.8!!!! That's right! Two more lbs and I broke the 190s. Goodbye 190s!

My exercise schedule for the week didn't work out as well as I wanted because of adjusting to new routines and things popping up. Hoping this week will be better for that. I'm just so stinkin excited for 189.8!!! Wanted to share really quickly! 

Back to Routine equals New Goals

This week school starts and routine returns. I've already picked up a new habit suggested by my cardiologist. That habit is eating not a quick breakfast in the car but setting down for breakfast at home with lean protein each day before work. I began that habit during marching band camp. I pre cooked gluten free biscuits and pancakes to last a few weeks. I also pre cooked chicken/pork sausage links. So each morning it took 1 min to warm EITHER one biscuit OR two pancakes in the microwave with a sausage link and cook one egg at the same time in the skillet. Super easy. Some mornings I ate it on the back porch while the dogs ran. (Multitasking!)

Next goal : get my exercise routine in check! My fantastic dr gave me a target heart rate zone to try for three months in addition to removing gluten. Well I do better with one big goal at a time. So now that I'm successfully eating gluten free I'm ready to hit the exercise hard. I'm going to purchase my polar heart monitor soon. Sunday night I sat down and planned out an exercise schedule for the week. It is as follows: 

Wednesday - Zumba

Thursday - Spin Class (fairly new to me)

Friday - Zumba

I decided that each week I'll set my schedule on Sunday when I plan the rest of my tasks out for the week. My "big rocks" for any 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fans out there!

I'm starting with classes. While I'm working on those I'm going to check back into some of my old routines I did with trainers as well as try to find a trainer again to use up the rest of my trainer sessions and see if its something I want to do again. 

I know I said I'm best at one big goal at a time but I think this one goes hand in hand with my exercise routine. It's to clean up my eating. 

Tonight I was watching Extreme Weightloss with Chris Powell. He ate for a day as his client used to eat and he was completely ill from eating restaurant food. Now I am super careful about restaurant food with my gluten free diet these days. (But that doesn't make gluten free restaurant food ok!) However, his experiment really struck me.  He said he has a treat once a week and its usually tortilla chips or frozen yogurt. Seriously! Seriously! How many of us consider those treats and not just foods that aren't "too many points" or they fit into our calories etc. 

My treats usually consist of Hersey's chocolate or ice cream and truthfully happen 2-3 times a week. Not ok. 

I know some about clean eating but over the next few months I will be figuring it out even more. I've been gluten free for 3 months and I've lost about 10 lbs which my cardiologist was super excited about. Next I'm going to settle back into my exercise routine and clean up my diet and then in 3 more months make that appointment with my doctor to see how it's gone with both a gluten free AND clean diet as well as steady exercise. 

I need encouragement though. I'm going to be posting more often on here as we'll as my Instagram/twitter accts. mostly food / exercise pics there. If you don't follow me there... both places you can find me @findtheskinny go follow me! My blog readers and Instagram/twitter followers truly keep me accountable and motivated. Thank you!

Tomorrow is weigh in day. I think I will also attempt to take measurements in the morning if I can find my measure tape without making myself run late. 

So here's to new goals an being back in a routine!