Bring on the ice packs

Today I went to see a chiropractor for the first time in many years. He was recommended by a friend and I decided that I'd finally get off my butt and go see him. They were able to get me in today (hooray!). He was a very kind and thorough guy. He doesn't strike me as the type to run a thousand tests on you (nor did he!) to get more money out of you. He doesn't have a huge office, nor a ton of people waiting and I think I liked that the best.

He examined me, took some x-rays and then put me on a "tens machine". They were trying to get the nerve in the lower back stimulated to respond better. That was a neat experience. It's like getting a lot of little shocks but it felt good, if that makes sense? It wasn't like a shock of putting your finger into a light socket or whatever. It was just a really good, tingly feeling.

After that session, he manipulated my back some. He had this table that was a bit like a "rack". He strapped my legs down and *stretched* the nerve that runs down the back. He also interpreted my x-rays and told me how we needed to approach the pain I've been feeling. (The pain has been a numb, tingly, sharp, off and on pain that has been with me for over a year. I thought it was my I/T band (ilio-tibial) but he thinks it's a pinched sacral nerve. I forget the name of the nerve, but he thinks that's the problem.

So, after he "tortured" me on the rack, he told me to go home and ice myself. I wasn't able to do it because I had to get Mr. A from school and make dinner, then I had class to go to. I went and had a lot of fun. It was an intense class!
We worked on a lot of things--Ho Sin Sul, One Steps. It was well worth going. I dont' regret much...other than not knowing how to speak Korean. We started out class with a warm up that included 10 jumping jacks per person. PER PERSON!!! 100 jumping jacks. YIKES!! LOL! My poor calves are a bit stiff and sore right now. I've already knocked back 32 ounces of water and may attack another one. We shall see.

It's time to get an ice pack out and and put it on my hip. I feel like I did a lot of good today. I got adjusted, then I went to class and worked hard. I feel like I made a huge improvement in my technique. I do need to remember to ask for help when I don't know something.

Now I'm going to relax.

Hack, wheeze...is it allergies?

I adore Spring. It's a wonderful time of renewal, but...man, it's killing me. I'm either fighting with a massive allergy attack or I've picked up something.
I've been stuffy, sneezy and feel pretty achy. I'm not sure if it's from the Bradford Pears that are blooming out or what. I sound like I've got a frog in my throat. Now imagine talking on the phone like that for a week. That's what I've been doing. Today I've been coughing and had to put callers on "mute" to be able to not cough their ears off. Heaven forbid you make me laugh!! That's worse! I've had people tell me I needed to go home. Hello? I can't leave because I'm the acting supervisor. I may feel like crap, but I'm not allowed to be sick. My manager needs me to be there because I do his job while he's gone. I'm just stumbling through as well as I can.

The only good thing about being sick today was that I managed to drink nearly 72 ounces of water. I drink more when I'm sick than I do on normal occasions. I'm working on changing that.

I got a new blog to read from one of my instructors. She's been keeping me in the loop and finding interesting things for me to read. I really think she's got my best interests in mind. It's like she's seeing my insecurities and my procrastination and she's trying to help me work around that and get better.
I truly feel that I'm in a good place in this school because of the help I get. The people in this school are sooo helpful to me! I get pick me up emails from people, I get words to think about from the head of the school. I have to say it's an incredibly good fit. I feel like I BELONG!!

Another long day

Today was another long day. I am filling in for my manager while he's on vacation. There are times when filling in for him makes me feel so much stress it's not funny. Today is another day like that. My back is sore and hurts like heck. Some of that was from work and some of that is from sitting for an hour on a very hard bench. That was at our Pack Meeting. We had a pretty good one tonight. Our Pack is putting on a Veteran's Day Parade at school. Our guys made gifts for the veterans who are going to walk in our Parade this year. I think it's a great idea. The lady behind this parade is a really nice lady who has a big heart.

The meeting was over at 8:10...Pack Leadership is supposed to clean up and get everyone out of the cafeteria (we have our meetings at the school) and get ourselves out of the building. I was *going* to attend class tonight, but...it wasn't possible as I would have spent 10 minutes driving to class and getting to spend about 10 minutes in class. I am a bit bummed by that but I'll make up for it on Thursday. I have immense amounts of work to do to get ready for class on Thursday. I know I'm weak and need to get into shape.

I still have to cement a workout plan and stick to it. I'm not walking as much as I'd like to. I haven't really walked since last week. I walked around on Saturday but not since. I am going to have to get *someone* to nag me to get my butt up and walking!! I AM getting away from my desk at work...that's a good thing for me. I now need to push it one step further and both drink more water and also work out more. Even if I don't get to test for my Ee Dan next year (and I'm thinking that unless I'm seriously improved over the next few months), I won't be testing.

One of the things I *have* to do is to lose weight. I saw my doctor last week and he asked me "Are you still doing your martial arts?" when he looked at my chart. I've gained 17 pounds back since March!! MARCH!! That's 7 months!!
I don't have any excuses. I have to knuckle down and exercise. I like being lazy. I also like the feeling of power I have when I see myself in smaller clothes. I am frustrated by having to buy large sizes when this time last year I was fitting into smaller sizes. Why am I letting myself get out of control? I'm not controlling myself the way I should. I need to exercise. I need to take charge of who I am. I accept myself, but I don't. Then I find myself full of self loathing and talk negatively about how I'm in such bad shape. I am NOT going ot let it be a self fulfilling prophecy. I don't want Mr. M's pride in me because I"m a "success story" (fat person earns black belt) to stick. I want to be proud of me because I'm good. I want to get my strength and stamina up so that when my time comes, I'll be able to go out and earn my Ee Dan and be good.

Thursday's thoughts

One of our cars is related to Lorraine's computer.
It died tonight. This is the second time this month the car has died on us. The first time, I was at karate. Tony had come to pick up Aidan and his car died, so I had to give him my keys while I took class. That night, we got the car jumped for $20.00 (not the $85.00 the dude was originally going to charge us!) and Tony took it home. That saved our bacon. He took the battery in to Auto Zone and had it checked out--it was "fine" according to them.
Fast forward to tonight. Tony called me from work and said "I'm taking the car to Goodyear. It died again. Someone here gave me a jump." Hooray! He walked home from Goodyear. It's a good thing the weather was cooler.

Goodyear called and told him that it was a battery issue. I had to tell him "I told you so!" since I'd told him that it was the battery when it first died. Ms. S suggested that...this IS Texas and extremely high temperatures will kill batteries. hahaha!! I had to laugh when he told me what it was.
$150.00 later, we've got a new bttery in the car. It really didn't take them that long to resolve the car problem. Makes me happy.

Of course, since the car died and Tony had to get to a meeting tonight, I missed my class. I guess I'll live. I'm not going to be overly grumpy. I'll just spend some time on Saturday doing forms outside. It'll be a good thing to do.
Before I left the old martial arts school, back when I was a "instructor" (I say that loosely because I only taught 2 classes by myself), I was planning on running a class outside. I stole the idea from another blog I spend time reading. He was talking about training outside. That's an idea I like. Still need to try to get that tried out one of these days. I'll go outside and do it myself. Then I can't be "busted" for teaching.

I'm a bit bummed about my weight. I've been fussing at myself all week. I didn't eat cleanly this week--last night we had nachos for dinner. Tony and I have gone from each of us eating a plate a piece to sharing one plate, and he eats the lion's share. Unfortunately, the chips have salt in them and any time you even HINT at salt near me, my body acts like it's the Sahara Desert. I seriously retain water. I gained a half pound overnight, despite 90 ounces of water! Ugh. Not my favorite thing to see. Need to work on that. I either can't eat chips (boo, hiss) or I need to up my water. That'll thrill people at work no end...they already make rude comments about me leaving my desk. Just what I don't need! DB has already reminded me once this week that I need to keep up with the water. He told me the other day that he'd drunk 2 litres of water by the time I'd barely finished 30 ounces. I've got to work on that as a goal too.
Maybe I need to figure out how to create an interactive chart to put up on my blog so that people can follow along when I'm drinking water and they can nag at me (nicely, of course) until I drink more.

Ch-ch-changes...

Lots of changes going on at the dojang. I'm sure that mentioning that we have to do a half mile run before the next test is not breaking any rules. I must say, I'm "allergic to running". Mr. M told me that he didn't care, I'd be running anyway. I have to say "ewwww!" I am vehemently NOT a fan of running! I leave that to the people who are lots lighter than me, the ones who enjoy it! Ah well. I'll get used to that, I suppose.
He told us a lot of things during class. I can't repeat it because he was very upset that there are huge rumors flying around about him, the school, etc. He talked to the CIT class and explained a few things to us. I've still got unanswered questions and I'm still performing my own reconnaissance on the other schools. I am going to go visit USA Martial Arts tonight and see my friend EG. Then I'm going to run down to the Y if I have the time (and feel so inclined) to check them out. I'm not 100% sure I'm going to stay where I am. I like Mr. M and the people there, but I'm not pleased by all the changes and I feel like maybe I need to look at moving on. I feel under appreciated when I'm there. I feel like some of them see me and just think, "Oh. It's YOU." I am probably viewing it through my own dissatisfaction and that's probably why I feel like that. (Time for the positive self-talk again!)

In other news...I stepped on that ugly scale this morning and was up 2 pounds from yesterday. I KNOW I worked out and didn't drink enough water, PLUS I ate enough sodium in the rice and beans the hubby made for dinner to cause me to retain water in case of a drought! The rule of thumb has to be "more water." "More water." "MORE WATER." If I don't drink enough, I'll puff up.
I'm very sensitive to salt. To make matters worse, I took a couple of Alleve today and that's got sodium in it too! Get the firehose handy!!

Lunch is almost over. I have a product specialist swiping my manuals so I need to go help him.

March 2, 2008

Happiness is having a quiet house so that you can enjoy a cup of coffee! The cats and I are the only ones up this morning. Everyone else is still in bed. This gives us time to sit in the living room and listen to the black birds cawing, and the mockingbirds yelling. They aren't singing--yet.
Today's supposed to be a gray day. The skies are overcast right now which is just fine with me. I'm an oddity down here as I LOVE gray days. I have the windows open. The cats are in the window and on the back of the love seat in front of the window. Every time a bird flutters by, they both go on alert. They're silly!

Last night I crashed completely. I guess I needed the caffeine withdrawal I had. I'm not going to do that on Friday--I'll have my morning coffee. I need to figure out what I'm going to eat during the day so that I'll have plenty of energy for the test that night. I'm open to suggestions.
Obviously it'll need to be something points friendly!

Speaking of points friendly, yesterday's weigh in was anything but friendly. Again, I didn't go up to the meeting, but weighed in at home. I did put it in my weight tracker on WW. I am seriously unhappy about it, but...I needed that wake up call. I haven't been tracking my points and I need to. I also need to drink more water--that's a huge thing for me. I drank 2 litres of water yesterday but feel like I could have drunk more. I usually have tons of excuses for not drinking water but they're just excuses. I shouldn't let work or my co-workers interfere with MY health.

Weight update

The pre-test was this morning at martial arts, so I didn't go to WW. In fact, I've had a horrid week. I went UP 2 pounds and was at 200 for two days. That freaked me out. I drank a LOT of water and went down to 199 and then up to 199.5. After modifying my behavior more (more veggies, more fruit, more water, less salty garbage), I managed to hit 198.5 this morning. I'm right back where I was. I can't take my Naproxen for the tendonitis because I don't drink enough water and am, in the words of the mother of my daughter's good friend, "a water retaining cow".
I don't drink enough water WHY? Because I've let my job interfere with what is good for me. If I drink more water, my mentality kicks in that I'll be away from my desk too many times and gosh, the department will fall apart without me. This is blatantly NOT true. Okay, they do hurt whenever I'm out for a day or two. Why that is, I don't know. It shouldn't BE that way, but it is. Oh well.

So, the upshot is, I'm maintaining right around 42 pounds off. I need to get lower. I set a date of April 17th to get another 20 pounds off. That may not happen at the rate I'm going. I have to up my workouts because I think I'm getting used to the current workout. My martial arts instructor had us doing plyometrics last week so that's something I'm going to work on.

Oh so tired!

Getting up and out at 7:30-7:45 am when it's 24 degrees is NOT an easy thing! It's really hard when you were previously snuggled up all toasty and warm under a bunch of covers, with a cat purring in your ear.
Class this morning was...COLD and challenging! We ran through a warm up to warm us up. There's a very bad pun there, I think.
We had a good workout. Sa Bu Nim had us run through techniques and Ho Sin Sul today. Ho Sin Sul is self defense. That includes wrist locks, shoulder throws and hip throws. I need to work more on those. The major problem is that working on them outside of class involves either children or hubby. Hubby likes to show me that he knows more than me and gets into a "I'm going to stop you here" mode. He isn't the best possible partner for working on Ho Sin Sul. I'll have to work on it with the kids. It'll help teach all of us and we'll be able to get some additional practice in at the same time. I SHOULD stay around for the Leadership Team classes at the end of the Basic classes so that I can work with them. That's another idea.
I have to miss a class next weekend because of a prior commitment for Cub Scouts. Hubby's working, so I have to take the little guy. I'll have to attend an extra class or something. I have classes at least two nights a week, so a third night is definitely a possibility. Have to convince hubby to get the kids fed. I'll hit up the Black Belt class on Tuesday. I have to be there for class at 7:00 anyway, so...6:00 isn't that much extra, only an hour. It's worth thinking about. I don't THINK it's my second pre-test but we'll see. I have to talk to my friend DB about it too. The really bad thing is, we're supposed to work on Bong Hyung Il Bu in that class. EEK!!

I think I've figured out that being dehydrated has something to do with the fatigue I'm feeling. I have just drunk 60 ounces of water and feel SO much better! I didn't drink nearly enough yesterday and it's affected me today. Then to have class this morning--only had a litre of water this morning and then nothing but coffee for the rest of the day. No wonder I'm worn out!! I need to watch that and improve that!!

First re-cert class-January 05, 2008

The first of 8 weeks' classes is over. I'm wiped out too! This morning has been VERY busy! I got out and went to WW (lost what I gained last week so I'm back on track!). I stayed for 20 minutes of the meeting, then raced out to the car and headed back to Allen. I made it to class with *minutes* to spare. I had my uniform in the car, so that was an easy thing to deal with--just grab and go! I got changed in nearly record time and was a minute or two late to line up, but not enough to freak out. What's really embarrassing to me is that I am an instructor and can't be late as I'm in the front row. The Cho Dan Bo's see me walk in and they must be wondering why I was so late! I've got to refine that process. I can do it.

We worked--HARD--for two hours. My friend Susan brought the coffee, so I was thrilled to pieces with that! I didn't have breakfast, so there were a few points where I got light headed and dizzy. Today's work out was advanced forms and weapons. I hadn't picked up a bong until last night when I was showing the guys at work how we worked with it. I now have to create a work out schedule/log and stick with it. I want to ace that form (Bong Hyung Il Bu). I have to work on the other forms too, the non-weapons forms. I can do Sip Soo well. I should as it's my newest form, but I REALLY need to work with it. We did Sip Soo, Nahainchi Cho Dan and Bassai today. Wait, we also did Pyung An Sam Dan, Oh Dan and Sa Dan. I know where I need to improve and that's something I'll start doing on my own at home. If he expects an hour a day from the kids, he'll get it from the adult in the class too.

I'm excited. I can already see how this is going to work. I am able to get many of my chores done Friday night, so I'll have Saturday as a "free" day after my class. Just need to figure out WHAT to eat that will give me energy and not sit heavily on my stomach when I go to class. I can't take another dizzy day! I ate when I got home and have finished my first 30 ounce glass of water for the day. MORE water! LOL!
I'm in a great mood and I'm sure this is going to carry over into the next week.

Another WW update!!

I had my usual Saturday morning meeting today. Now bear in mind that I haven't been to meetings since September 29th. I went back last week after making a promise to my best friend that I'd get back on track. I had gained 3.4 pounds in that time frame. I'm happy to say that I've lost it again. I'm back to 42.6 pounds GONE! This makes me happy because I didn't go in the wrong direction.

Today we talked about the Weight Watchers from the 70s. There were a couple of ladies who had followed that plan many years ago in the meeting. They had a lot of weird, probably not medically sound, "diet mentality" things they were doing...one of the things these ladies mentioned was the *6 meat servings* in a day, that you HAD to eat?! EWWW!! I eat meat but 6 servings *in a day* is too much for me!!! Some days I don't eat meat at all. It all depends on my mood. I guess that my peanut butter counts as a meat, but geez, eating THAT much meat?! I'm glad I have the plans I'm following now!!

The major reason we talked about this was that WW rolled out their new and improved meeting materials this week. We can all "start over" in a matter of speaking. We got a new Week 1 book and a booklet titled "KickStart Your Success". It's got information about the Flex Plan and the Core Plan. I personally follow the Flex plan, where you have a given number of points daily and 35 "flex" points a week. The idea is that you have the extra points, but that you don't necessarily have to use them. My goal is to eat my points (or stay under a bit) but not to dip into the flex points. MOST days I can stay within points. This past week, I didn't do so well because I actually went over on Thursday and on Friday. No matter how many fresh veggies and fruits you eat, no matter how much water you drink, if you go over on portions, you'll gain. I know this from experience. I'm not getting down about it. I've already gotten over that.

So this morning, at W/I, I went to the usual lady I go to. I absolutely adore Bernice. She's lost something like 150 pounds and is just one of the sweetest, funniest people around. She saw me and told me it wasn't that cold. I told her, "I'm that cold!" We laughed as I unearthed myself from my coat, gloves, and shoes, put everything down and got ready to get on the scale. When I stepped up, she told me I scared her! LOL! I had a really great week, despite not journaling and keeping up with it like I'd planned.
We got a laugh about me scaring her, but it felt good to see that number. I also surprised another lady, Doris, when she saw me there for the second week in a row. She asked if I was coming in next week and I said "YOU BETCHA!" I'm going back. 21 times makes a habit--I have 19 times to go to ingrain the habit.

I start training for my black belt recertification test on January 5th. That class is at 8:00, so I'll get into uniform, go weigh in and attend most of the meeting, then head to the class and work for 2 1/2 hours. Then it's home to drink LOTS of water and recover. We won't even TALK about the fact that for THIS test I have a PT test. (anyone want to be a "pinch runner" for me? I have to run a MILE and I'm NOT a runner!!) I think that over the holiday break from Martial Arts, I'll go out and either walk or run after work. Who knows, maybe I'll wind up liking it. It'll be a challenge, like my belt test was.

Oh joy...here we go again...

Bear with me...I'm ranting and raving here.

One of these days I'm going to learn NOT to sabotage myself! I actually saw 197 on Friday, then it gradually climbed back up again to 201 by today. I have no excuses, just my poor choices. I had *no problems* on Thursday maintaining, but Friday, when I cooked Thanksgiving for my immediate family, I took it as a license to pick. I picked and I picked. I KNOW better! My downfall? That turkey. I LOVE the skin! I ate the skin. I made excuses for it, saying "I won't gain THAT much!" Did I exercise? Oh no! I sat on the couch and watched football games. I didn't even drink my water!!
I weigh myself daily, just because it works for me to see the fluctuations in my weight. If I was smart (obviously I'm not since I don't practice what I'm preaching here...), I'd just go with the once a week weigh ins and keep it there. I even got hubby to agree to go to WW with me. Have I been in a month? NOPE. Too bloody lazy to get up in the morning.
That is going to change. My lifestyle has GOT to reflect healthy for my children. I have two kids who don't need to have to live with seeing their mother fighting with weight issues. THEY shouldn't have weight issues. That's part of why I enrolled them in martial arts.
Anyway...I'm not going to sabotage my loss efforts. I have a thought in my head that I picked up from somewhere..."Conscious eating". If I'm conscious of what I eat, when I eat and HOW I eat, I'll be successful. Going forward, I am going to make every effort to be conscious of my eating.

Another new start

I got good and disgusted with myself this past weekend. I'm still thinking about it and mentally whacking myself upside the head. I had a gain. Not just a "small" gain, but to me, a HUGE gain! I gained 6 pounds in a week and I was furious with myself for it! I decided to stop ignoring my journal and my exercise and get back on track. Yesterday I tracked points and did reasonably well. Today I tracked points, but when it came to eating, I don't think I made good enough choices. For example...5 whole wheat saltine crackers is 1 point. 10 is 3 points. I had 15 of them. 10 at one time, for lunch (with cheese, 3 points per slice, two slices) and then 5 for a snack, with cheese, another 4 points there. Dinner was 5 points out of the "WW Turnaround Program Cookbook". I had milk, which put me over because I didn't have a standard serving. I had 12 ounces instead of 8 ounces. I used 4 of my flex points for the week, so I'm down to 31 flex points. I would prefer NOT to use any of the flex points! I am not in enough control to prevent myself from routinely using those points. I would blow through them in a hurry if I wasn't in control. Therefore, my thought is to NOT use the flex points.

I'm also working on drinking more water. I haven't drunk nearly enough this weekend. I know that. I will work on that as a goal for the week. My goal is to drink 2-24 ounce glasses of water a day at work and at least 1 more at home after work. I also need to plan on snacking at work but measuring everything I eat so that I control that too.

By monitoring everything I ate yesterday, I saw a loss of 1.5 pounds, so some of it could have been just "normal" gains. I don't think I'll see a loss in the morning, but at least I know that I'm having to journal. I'll see what happens at the end of the week.

Some days it doesn't pay to gnaw through the leather straps...

Well, I can't report myself as having a loss this week. I don't know what my problem is, but I've seen my ugly scales going up all week. In the past two weeks, I've gained back 4 pounds. That pisses me off. Plain and simple, there it is. My husband said that it's a trend with me...whenever I lose, I inevitably gain it back, then lose it again. I don't like that trend. I don't want it to be true. I've not been journaling (starting again tomorrow!), I'm not exercising to my fullest potential and I'm really getting irritated. I don't sit around the house and eat all day long on the weekends. I know this. I also know that I'm not out exercising for an hour and a half to two hours on Saturdays anymore. I was during the black belt testing period. I am sure that's part of it. Maybe I need to hit up the Saturday classes with my kids. We'll see.

There's a guy at work who is looking really good. He's eating five times a day and has lost a lot of weight. I guess maybe I need to look into that, but with low points foods. I know I need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Having an enchilada lunch is not the best way to lose. Yesterday, for example, I had a packet of 'lower sugar maple/brown sugar oatmeal' for breakfast, two cups of coffee, a sugar free jello pudding cup, enchiladas, another sf jello pudding cup. At home, I snagged a piece of turkey sausage (literally a small piece, not a serving) and about a 1/4 cup of macaroni. Nothing on the macaroni. No butter. No cheese. Just plain macaroni. I drank 32 ounces of water when I got home from martial arts (I assisted with a class) and I had 24 ounces at work. Not the best day for water. Please remind me that water is essential!! I know I'm not drinking enough, but that's not what caused the four pound gain in two weeks.
I just need to wrap my head around losing weight and get back on track. If I don't, my new slacks won't keep fitting!!

Lessons learned

I think I've learned a valuable lesson. Drink LOTS of water and *never* get on the scale after a day of very low water drinking. I was up 1.5 pounds this morning. I KNOW it's from not drinking enough water. I'm supposed to be making every effort to drink more water. If I drink more this week, maybe I'll see a better loss. I'm back to working out heavy duty now. I can run again. There's a story behind that statement...I tore my left quad a few weeks ago and wasn't able to run. Last night I actually ran for the first time and it didn't hurt! I did lunges too. I can do that without pain now! YIPPEE! I also went out and walked with one of the girls from class on Tuesday. We walked about 2 1/2 miles. It was a good walk. It was hot still, but cooler than it would have been if we'd gone out during lunch. Now that it's full summer in Texas, we're not walking during lunch anymore. We'll wait until the weather cools down in September.

I'm a slacker

I am such a slacker! My friend's out of town, so I've only walked ONE DAY this week! I took yesterday off because the weather looked ugly. I didn't go to boot camp last night. I had a terrified little boy who needed some mommy time because he was afraid of the storm we had last night. I took off today to get my hair cut because I wanted to be sure to get it done by next weekend. I was tired of looking like Cousin IT.
I have class tonight, so that's a good thing. It's not boot camp, but it's martial arts and I'm definitely going to be moving. I'll probably go out and walk a few laps around the quadrangle at the apartment complex when I get home so that I can say I walked today. I'm not 100% sure about that. After class, I'm usually pretty tired and ready to get on the Internet for a few minutes, checking mail and stuff.

I guess I can use this week as an experiment to see if my gain of last week is related to the extended working out I did last week. If I skip the lunchtime walks for the rest of this week (all two days of it!), and just do boot camp and martial arts, we'll see what the weight is. Of course, I'm trying to drink water too. I'm not drinking as much as I should. Yesterday I only drank 96 ounces. Today, I'm barely into my first 32 ounce cup. Not a good day for me so far.
I know that water's essential for things.

Obsession

I found a good thing at the grocery store AND it's points friendly! Chicken of the Sea ("Ask any mermaid you happen to see...") has an "Ahi Tuna Steak", so I got it. It is ONLY *3* points! It's a single serving package too. 5.25 ounces. Okay, not quite 6 ounces but it's GOOD! I also cooked brown rice and had that with my tuna. I WAS going to eat a salad but I'm stuffed, so it's gone. I have 8.5 points left over, I think. The only reason for the half point is that I ate a medium tomato and it counts for a half point. Not sure how but I won't argue.

Here's sad for you. Yesterday I got convinced to go to Quiznos with one of my co-workers. I had really wanted Subway--their Veggie Delite Salad is awesome! Anyway...we went to Q and I looked at the menu. I didn't want a sandwich. (I had a Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal for lunch already that would have been a late snack.) After debating the menu, I ordered the "Roman Chicken Salad". I figured it would be like 6-7 points. I got back to the office and went into shock. It was 16 points. **16 points!!!** I was stunned! I wound up giving it to another co-worker. I absolutely REFUSE to spend that kind of points on lunch! It would have left me like 2-3 points for dinner. I wasn't going to do that. It would have made my week that much worse than it was already...

I've had a couple of weeks from hell already because I listened to my hubby and weighed myself daily! (That was a nightmare. It's NOT a good idea unless you LIKE stress!!!)
I lost my 10% and had lost the 25 pounds too as a result of the strep. When I got back into a "normal" eating habit, I started putting on weight. That panicked me. I went virtually psycho and was on the verge of screaming daily. One of my dearest friends in the world has been following WW also and she told me very nicely "don't you get on that scale! Stay away from it!" (sorry, I didn't listen...I'm a mule.) I talked to her and told her how frustrated I was. We agreed that I've been attempting to eat right. I was panicked and she reminded me that I need to just count my points, get my activity in and drink my water!!! I haven't been drinking nearly enough water and it was showing. Plus, I was taking glucosamine for my joints at my doctor's recommendation and would wake up every morning feeling "puffy". I stopped taking it yesterday and this morning, I was down 3 pounds (shhhh! I know, I was on that scale! I'll put it away tomorrow, really, I will!!). I didn't feel puffy. Now I know that your weight fluctuates because of TOM and other things so I'm prepared to deal with that. I know that I hadn't been eating when I lost my ten percent and that 25 pounds. I'm okay. I WILL get it back off!!
I'm trying to get back on track. I've actually had 32 ounces of water since I've been home from work, just so you know! I had a pretty good meal too!

Just so you know...here's my journal for today:

Breakfast:
1 Weight Watchers Smart Ones English Muffin Sandwich-4 points
2-8 oz cups of coffee-0 points

Lunch:
1 Weight Watchers Smart Ones Santa Fe Style Rice and Beans: 5 points

Snack:
None
1-8 oz cup of coffee

Dinner:
1 Chicken of the Sea Ahi Tuna steak in a grilled herb marinade (tasty!)-3 points
1/2 C Mahatma brown rice, cooked in vegetable broth (can we count that as a veggie?!)-6 points (actually, it was more like closer to a cup, so 6 points is a reasonable calculation)
1-medium tomato-.5 points.
1-32 oz glass of water with 0-point "water mix-ins" from Walmart. That made it a Raspberry-lemonade thing.

Total points: 18

Exercise:
walking 1 hour-2 points.

I'm not hungry anymore. I'm cold, but that's just me. I'm always cold! LOL!

If you see anything you'd recommend to me to change, I'm listening!! I know I need to get more veggies in. I'm sure I could do better there. I'm going to talk to my doctor next week and see if he's heard of a reaction to the glucosamine like that. If he has, I'll have to change what I'm doing. It was to prevent me having to take medication for my knees (they hurt if I'm very active at all!). Ah well. I PROMISE, I will call the doc on Monday.

I'll be back to post an update tomorrow after the meeting. I want to get back into going to meetings. I missed last week because I had to work. I won't miss this one. I need it.
Someone's got to help me hold myself accountable!!