When you feel yourself slipping...what do you do?

What do you, my friends, family, fans, randoms, etc do when you find yourself slipping up?  I've had a hard couple of days diet-wise, and last night found myself watching reality TV of some sort (okay, it was Teen Mom) and I was sitting there with a small bowl of dried fruit mix which is calorie carb evil.  It's about 9:30 as I'm throwing back the last of the snack when I realize I wasn't supposed to eat anything after 8pm because I had fasting bloodwork in the morning...damn!

So I put it all away, chugged two glasses of water in hopes that I don't end up looking like a diabetic when I take get my blood drawn and go to bed telling myself that today, I am going to get right back to it without fail.  I had already planned my entire days worth of meals and snacks before I went to sleep so I didn't have to do any last minute guesswork.  I have modified it slightly to get a little bit more protein involved and less carbs, but It's within my calorie requirements so I can do it.  I think I'm going to pull up my old lists from the first couple weeks and put together a new menu.  I feel like I am still eating a lot of processed foods, and recently more fruit than I should and less protein than I should.  It's just so damn easy to fall back into the bad habits so easy!  I just have to continue to make informed, educated, and CONCIOUS decisions to eat better. 

Anyone have any tips for when they have slipped up and find themselves on the on the verge of spiraling out of control?  Do you journal?  Do you throw food away?  Do you go on a cleanse or fast to clear your mind and body?

My tools for weight loss

The two biggest contributing factors to my weight loss journey are Monarch Medical Weight Loss and MyFitnessPal.com.  Here are my breakdowns and reviews:

Monarch Medical Weight Loss (www.monarchmedical.net)

I've been an on-again off-again patient at Monarch over the last couple years, and I had tried MyFitnessPal once before but never used it to the best of it's ability.  This last time I went to Monarch, they figured out all the good stuff like how many calories I need to eat to maintain my weight, how many I need to eat to lose weight, how many grams of protein I should have a day, how many meals I should eat, the types of foods I should focus on, how it's better to eat the same thing every day. They give you little journals to write everything in, but I totally suck at doing that.  I've failed after a day and a half most of the time.

MyFitnessPal (www.myfitnesspal.com)

But my gal Brandy suggested MyFitnessPal.com prior to me joining Monarch again, and I did it for about a week, but ended up quitting and going back to my normal habits.  When I went to my Monarch appointment they suggested it to me, and this time I decided to give it a try.  I LOVE IT!  Especially since I got a new phone for Christmas and have a working camera again.  The awesome thing is that you can take a picture of the barcode, on almost anything, and it will give you all the nutritional information for it.  Takes all the searching out of the picture, you decide how many servings, you save it, and bingo!!!  There are places for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.  You can also track water intake, exercise (both cardio and strength).  The program also breaks down all your intake of food by day, or by week.  You can see pie charts, bar graphs, etc. You can also track your weight, though on the mobile app, you don't see the last weight except when you are logging a new one.  The graph just shows a line where the weight is. However, on the website, you can get much more detailed reports of the information you are logging.  You can pull past days eating history!  It's awesome!  So while many people don't feel it is something that works, tracking your calories definitely works!  You just have to want it!!!

I'm feeling low...gotta get over this!

I'm feeling like I'm spiraling out of control.  It's been just under 7 weeks since I started back on this journey, and I've been pretty regimented about how I'm following plan.  Generally during the week I'm very good, then on the weekends I let myself splurge a little.  I also was able to lose weight during the holidays for the first time in my life.  I've been GOOD.

However, I'm about to have my monthly cycle, and as I'm sure most of you ladies can appreciate, it sort of makes you want to DEVOUR everything in site.  I don't know why our bodies have to betray us this way, but they day.  As if we didn't already have enough on our plate.  Bleeding profusely from the hoo-hoo isn't enough?  We then have to gain ten pounds too?!

Anyways, what I'm getting as is this last weekend I told myself I wasn't going to be as lax about my eating as I have been, because I know if I stuck to it 7 days a week rather than 5, I'd lose more weight! Duh! So I went into it full-bore though we ended up having tons of racing, I had no food in the house, and was exhausted.  Oh yeah, PMS is coming on too! So yes, I ended up going right back into my normal patter. Then Sunday happened.  Then today I was pretty good, but still didn't make the great decisions I usually make.  Then dinner happened.  I thought it was good, but had WAY too much rice.  I've already used up all my calories for the day, and quite frankly a few of tomorrow's too.  I'm already starting to worry about my upcoming weigh-in.

I'm at a point right now, where I need to really get myself in check. This is where the real work comes in.  I am fighting a battle and feel like right now, I could just gorge all night.  I sort of did that last night.  I ate dried pineapple rings (CALORIE HELL!) which I love, then I had some chips, and a granola bar, etc.  This is it. Tomorrow I am going to be much better.  I also need to learn to each just my little meals without trying to figure out how to make it as bulky and filling as possible.  See, this is how much of a sickness food addiction is.  I'm addicted to food.  It's sick as hell.  I'm constantly trying to cheat the system and modify it so I'm full. I just need to stop!!!

I'm pulling up the bootstraps and getting back on this wagon tomorrow morning. I'm going to have my one little Weight Watchers cake thing, then a bunch of water tonight.  And I'm going to plan out my entire day of food, all the way through dinner and evening snack so I have no room to mess this up.  And I think I'll start going to the mall ever day to walk.  I have to get this body moving.  I've been doing more lately, like hitting the punching bag, and stretching while watching  TV.  Sunday morning little man woke me up and asked me if I was still working on losing weight.  Without reacting (i.e. sobbing myself back to sleep) I said yes, and he told me he found something for me. Remember, little man is 7, and he had gotten up before me.  He took me out to the computer and showed me the Les Mills Pump Workout.  He saw it on an infomercial while watching cartoons.  Let me tell you...little man was PUMPED!  He wanted me to buy it right then! LOL.  I was sort of sold on it too, however the program is about $175 after the intro period.  Yeah....no.  But my sweet boy was looking out for me.  It's hard to cope with the fact  that my little boy wants me to lose weight as badly as I do.  It breaks my heart that I haven't been able to be quite the mom he needs because of it. But I'm working to change it.  Every pound I lose is for him.  I want to be here longer.  I want to see him get married.  I want to meet my grandbabies someday.

So the moral of today's story is this--I am going to do this, and it's time to get down and dirty! I have a weigh in on Friday morning coming up and want to see another loss!  I'd love to see a 3.5 pound loss which would put me only 3.5 more to my first goal.  I can do this.  You just wait and see!

I was bad last night.

Okay, last night I had Taco Bell for dinner.  We were at the races much later than usual due to it being a big race event, there are no groceries in the house, and we just wanted to eat.  I know, I know, I could have ordered some "healthy" options, or even opted out entirely and ate the frozen meal I have in the freezer, but I hadn't had fast food in quite some time.  I ate it, tried to not feel totally guilty, and vowed that was the last time I have fast food.  

Now, I think I want to draw the line in the sand so to speak, about fast food.  Fast food, to me, includes the chain restaurants like McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Arby's, etc.  where most of the food you order no where near resembles its origination, it has a drive through, and most likely has a dollar menu. I do not think that Subway, 5 Guys, Jakes Wayback, etc is fast food.  I think this because the food while sometimes higher calorie, come from healthier food sources, and are overall less processed than their counterparts.  This being said, I still want to reserve the amount of times I am eating "out" at a restaurant since I usually end up going overboard.  In the last 6 weeks since I started my journey I have eaten out only 4-5 times, plus 1 time I stopped at Trader Joes for a wrap and rice chips, which I counted every point of. I have gone from eating out 4-6 times a week to about once a week, and quite frankly, I want to eliminate it entirely unless we are invited out to dinner by friends or family.  Not only would we save a ton of money, but it would help me avoid the risk of eating a bunch of crap!

So now, I'm hitting it hard today. Starting off with a strawberry-protein-almond milk smoothie, with 24 oz of water to chase down my vitamins, and 2 large mugs of green tea.  I've realized that on the weekends I'm not drinking my green tea at all, and that is also contributing to me just going all willie nillie.  I want to see a loss this week of 3.5 pounds.  I know I can do it.  I'm pulling my food journals from my first 2 weeks to see what I was eating then, and changing up my menu.  I'd like to hit that first 25 pounds February 8.  I know I can do it.  Tonight we eat bun-less burgers! Yummo!

First pics of the weight loss journey.

I sort of meant to do this for my first post on the blog, but I needed to get these on here so I can start documenting.  I just had my hubby take these profile shots.  This is 18 pounds down.  I will take another one when I get to 25, then another after each 25 pounds.  I hope you know how hard it is to bear myself like this, and can appreciate how hard it is to be so open about the amount of weight I have to lose, and the battle I have ahead of me.  Thank you all for your support!

My first post!

Well, here I am.  Woo hoo! Yippee! Are there fireworks going off to celebrate?  Probably not.  I'm going to give blogging, yet again, another shot.  I just started a new blog about two weeks ago on a site I hadn't used before, and right as I was posting my awesome blog for the day, I got an error that the site was busy, then a screen telling me my blog was suspended.  Crap.  That totally sucks. I emailed the tech people and got no response.  All my blogs were deleted.  I think they were my best posts yet too.  Whatever.  I came back to Blogger.  I have used it before and have never had a problem.  It's a little weird that I have to do the whole Google+ thing to have an "about me" section, but we all have to evolve someday right?

I hope you will join me for this journey.  Right now I'm at the beginning of a whole lot of changes I am going to make in my life.  My biggest one right now is weight loss. Yesterday I weighed in and had lost 17.9 pounds in 45 days exactly.  I've been tracking my food intake, focusing on protein, and even moving more.  I hit the punching bag, I've gone on walks while at work, and I've registered for a 2 mile walk and a 5k the following week.  I am already dreading the 5k and can't believe I was so gung ho as to register for something like that at the weight I am without any sort of training, but quite frankly, even if it takes me 3 hours to finish it, at least I'll have finished it right? 

Gaining all this weight wasn't necessarily fun, and taking it off is going to be hard.  But I'm hoping it will be more fun to lose it than gain it. I have set goals/rewards for myself for this weight loss journey:

-25 pounds.......charm necklace and one charm and new workout clothes.-50 pounds.......charm and heart rate monitor.
-75 pounds.......charm and new running shoes.
-100 pounds.....charm and a kayak.
-125 pounds.....charm and snowboard pants, boots, and jacket.
-150 pounds.....charm and a weeklong snowboarding trip
-175 pounds.....charm and a BMX cruiser bike.
-200 pounds.....charm and a trip to Hawaii, baby!

I know that I have a lot of weight to lose, and most likely will never get to that supermodel skinny that losing 200 pounds will get me, but it's okay to dream.  I'm right now already so looking forward to buying that charm necklace and charm to go on it for hitting my first 25 pounds, and since I'll be hitting that first 25 about the time I do my walk and 5k, I already bought myself some new workout gear.  I gotta look like I am trying at least.  I'm also hoping my new gear will make me look like I'm walking faster...LOL!