Together We Will Do This!

My church's Lenten sermon on Ash Wednesday was about using this Lenten season to concentrate on 'what is God's plan for me' and 'am I living up to God's purpose for my life, to my God given potential?". My answer was 'no, I'm not'. I think my weight is detrimental to how I feel about my own personna, I *know* it is. I don't do social events because of my weight... I am the most social person in the world, too... but these past 10+ years, I have just gotten heavier and heavier and shrunk back from 'real life' more and more.

So, I'm doing something about that. Weight Watchers and my friends there will help. It takes someone else who is struggling at the same size to know the battle, you know? I have wanted a hershey bar all day.... badly! I keep fighting internally about it and have made it through and know I will... but man! I *really* want to taste chocolate. I know if I had one kiss, it would end up being 20. : ( Ugh.

Weigh in for me was last night. I lost another 4.8 lbs. in the past week so that makes a total of 15 lbs. in two weeks. I'm out of the 260s and into the 250s (barely!). I want to get to 240 in the next month... that is my goal. 240 by May 1st. I also had another member of the group take a photo of my WW leader, Judi, and me so I could have a record of the beginning of this journey! ; )

Not a good photo of Judi who is usually laughing and so animated...

she looks sullen here which she, definitely, is not! And I will

wear this same outfit every Thursday night for WI so I can't

say my clothes were heavier from one week to the next.

Monday and Back At It

DF and I went to Connecticut for a long weekend this past weekend. We both took Friday off and drove there in the early afternoon, checking into our very nice room and then changing and going off to the MGM Grand for the Bruce Hornsby show which I'd gotten free tickets to. The show was amazingly great - I enjoyed every second of it!

I tried to keep on plan all weekend and did a pretty good job. I did have unaccounted for popcorn out of DF's bag at the movies on Saturday night but other than that (maybe 4 pts total) I counted everything. Even the glass of white wine with dinner. And AT dinner at a steak house on Saturday night I had already checked out their menu online and knew what I was going to order before hand... 8 oz of steak tips kabob. And it was delicious. Plus this restaurant had a really simple but good salad bar with great choices. And a baked potato and I measured out one Tbsp of sour cream and butter. A piece of rye bread (plain) and that was it. No dessert. : )

So here it is Monday and I'm back on plan. I plan to Wii it tonight, too, so should get some activity points logged. I'm on my way to making all of this habit and not so difficult, I hope! One thing I want to keep track of, and so am posting it here, is that the Prevention Flat Belly Diet really is all about including MUFA (monounsaturated fatty acids) into your diet. That can easily be incorporated into the WW food plan, so I'm posting some articles I found quickly on the web that include what foods MUFAs are. The bulleted list below is from different web sources:

• Most foods contain a combination of different fats. Examples of foods high in monounsaturated fats include vegetable oils such as olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil and sesame oil. Other sources include avocados, peanut butter, and many nuts and seeds.
• Olives
• Olive oil
• Peanuts
• Dark chocolate
• Popcorn
• Almonds
• Nuts
• Nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts/filberts, Brazil nuts, pistachios, Macadamia nuts
• The four categories of MUFA that I like are oils, nuts and seeds, avocados and olives, and chocolate. Oils are specific, like Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Grape Seed Oil, and Soybean Oil. If you sautee your chicken in one of these oils, and put it on a mixed green salad with cheese and eggs, you have done great with a low-carb meal, and including your MUFA. The nuts and seeds category includes a lot of different snacks. Peanuts, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, and sunflower seeds are all on the list. These can be a quick snack, or you can add them to your meal. Pecan Encrusted Tilapia is a great way to include your MUFA, and be high protein at the same time. The avocados and olives category is pretty self explanatory. Olives make a great snack with some cheese. Avocados are great to add to your salad, or you can make a tasty guacamole to dip your low-carb tortilla chips in. Finally, my favorite, but least often consumed MUFA is chocolate. Dark chocolate, especially, is a good MUFA. Living low-carb, though, you must try not to have an abundance of chocolate, as it is not a low-carb food.
  

Since I love avocados (but they are horrendously HIGH in calories!!!), that is an easy choice. I'm not big into nuts but I like almonds well enough. I could try to add those into my diet. EVOO is easy... and I do have Flaxseed Oil tablets I should be taking so will begin that regimen again to increase daily MUFA intake. We'll see if it helps, I guess! :)