Hey all! Amelia is doing much better! Thanks for the inquiries. Poor girl. I took her to the pediatrician yesterday they dressed the wound in butterfly bandages and said it was nasty, but should be ok. She seems have no idea it's there.

I've been keeping up with my running schedule. Logged 3 miles last night after dinner. Running another 3 or 4 today. Last night's run was not all that great. I didn't feel "light" and I think I ran too soon after dinner. I felt sluggish and ran sluggish. But I finished the mileage! Then I went to "mom's night" at a friends house where we drank wine and talked. Halfway through we all decided we wanted authentic Mexican cheese dip, chips and salsa- so we picked some up! It hit the spot, but I totally overate. Shamefully overate. And I paid for it. I felt really yucky. I had a stomach ache when I went to bed. :( I'm really trying to learn this "full" feeling. My friend who has successfully lost and maintained with intuitive eating said I should always stop eating on the first "I think I'm full" thought. If you have to stop and think whether or not you're full, you probably are. That's where I tend to fall short. I keep eating while I ponder: Am I full? lol

I found and cool site that basically outlines what I'd like to become habit: http://www.intuitiveeating.com/

Great tips.

I'll be on later. I'l update with my tracker

So, right after I wrote the last post I got the kids and started to leave when I heard Amelia crying in the kitchen. She had sliced her leg on a piece of glass that had broken from a glass slipping out of the dishwasher earlier in the day. I thought I had swept up all the pieces, but I didn't. :( It's a pretty bad cut. I had a friend who is a nurse come look at it and tell me if I needed to go to the ER or not. She said it was a bad cut, but not ER worthy. She suggested I take Amelia to the pediatrician tomorrow morning and see what they say. She might need an antibiotic. Ugh. Poor girl. She can't catch a break. Last week she had two injuries. One where she busted her head on the kitchen island and another where she busted her lip. She just started walking and she is falling all over the place. Fischer was never like this. He was so steady and fell so gracefully. Amelia just plows into everything. I'm sure people see her bruises and cuts and wants to call CPS on me! My poor baby...

So here's me as a Simpson's character. LOL I went to the Simpson's movie site and created my character. I thought it was funny. :)

So, making the cookies the other night was probably not the best idea. I didn't go hugely over board, but I also grabbed one any time I could and ate it. I made so many that I had enough to give 3 plates away to neighbors and still have some in my kitchen, calling my name every hour. Luckily I sent the last of them with Ed to his parents. Phew! But aren't they beautiful??


Ran 3 miles yesterday. Going to Total Body class at the Y in 5 minutes. Just wanted to check in. I'll post more later!

Caring for two children that are going through two different difficult and needed stages is enough to make me voluntarily pull my other big toe nail off. *sigh*

Yesterday was really rough with the kids. I don't know what it was, but someone was either peeing or crying or screaming or hurting the other one or hungry or tired or you name it. Ed and I were so irritated we both looked at each other like we weren't going to survive the day. It definitely affected my eating habits. I was fine until night (of course) and then I bascially ate a full dinner after "snacking" at the childbirth class I was attending for my continuing education doula requirements. So, basically I had peach pie, some apple slices in caramel dip, some bread with creaming, veggie spread and THEN I come home and make a sandwich and chips. It was a bad moment. But, I'm ok. I woke up and ate well today. Right now I've prepared dinner that's in the oven finishing and even prepared tomorrow night's dinner. It's a stew that is to DIE for that you let sit over night and then cook 5 hours in the oven tomorrow. *drool* I'm not particulary hungry right now. So if Ed and Fischer get home soon and are hungry, I'll just join them, but won't eat until I'm ready. I'm determined to make this a habit, despite what the clock says or what the rest of the family is doing.

I'd like to get a run in after dinner. I missed my long run on Saturday due to Aunt Flo cramps. :( But, since I found out I'm ahead of schedule by a week for the marathon training, I could let this week slide and begin today. Sometimes life deals you a break right when you need it.

Well, I'm not sure what the heck my scale is doing. Last I checked I was 140 lbs. Then today I was 142 and some change.!!? This is sotra of typical with my period, so I'm going to give myself some time to regulate. I can tell I've been retaining water like crazy. I'm so bloated and icky. My runs have been sluggish. I think when it's all said and done, I can live with teetering b/w 139 lbs and 142ish lbs. I feel good at that weight. I've always wanted to be 135 lbs. Just....because. But the more I've been thinking about it, the more I realize that 5 more lbs is not going to magically make me better. I'm healthy, I'm fit and I enjoy my body and my clothes. I think I just wanted the comfort of knowing I had 5 lbs to work with if I slipped up. If I was 135 lbs, then if I had a bad week, I'd still be under 140lbs. Does that make sense? It was a number/mind game.

Who knows? I might still reach 135 lbs. Especially with all this training, but I think it's important for me to embrace where I'm at now. I have to live in the moment with food, weight, and life. It's the only way I can really survive it all. :)

Here's my tracker:

Breakfast:
Kashi granola bar
Coffee with cream and splenda
Nectarine

Lunch:
Cup of Vegetarian Chile
1/2 avacado, sliced
1/2 tomatoe, sliced

Snack:
Mocha
Sweet potato chips

Dinner:
Stack-A-Roll (http://www.yumyum.com/recipe.htm?ID=7528)
Spaghetti Squash

I really want to make the Neimen-Marcu $250 cookie recipe tonight. But I know I'll cave if I'm not hungry enough to actually eat some. So, maybe if I get some hunger cues after running, I'll start whipping them up! I LOVE those cookies!

It's so freaking hot out! I live in Atlanta and the humidity is horrendous! Which, makes me earn extra points because yesterday I loaded both kids up in the double jogger and ran 3 miles on a river trail! I'm so hot... I've been doing well on the intuitive eating front. I did have a little love affair with the vanilla wafers just now, but I'm determined not to eat again until I'm truly hungry. For now I'm sipping on coffee and water and getting cozy with my laptop. Amelia is taking a long nap and exhausted from her vaccinations this morning and our park visit after lunch. Fischer and I are snuggling on the couch and watching some good ol' fashioned cartoons! After Amelia wakes up, I'm off to the YMCA to run 4 miles. I can't do the jogger and heat again today. Might as well take advantage of the free childcare while I can!

After the Y I have to come back home, shower, and go to a client's house for a consultation. Then back home for poker night! Ed and I are learning how to be good poker players. I want to make something yummy for snacks. Not sure what though..

Here's today's tracker:

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with flaxseeds with bluberries
Nectarine

Lunch:
Chick-fil-A sandwich
1/2 serving of fries
diet coke

Snack:
Too many vanilla wafers :(

Dinner:
We'll see. It's poker night, so I'm sure it will be "snacky." I'm going to eat some veggies at some point. I realized I haven't gotten in some consistent veggies lately.

Have you ever had days that made your blood pressure spike before 9am? Yeah, that was me today. I had a lot to do today and hit the floor running, trying to be timely and organized. To do list: Get kids up, dressed, and fed. Drop off at church for babysitting fundraiser. Eat brunch with my friends. Pick kids up. Go to store to get stuff to make "Meals on Wheels" for two couples that just had babies in our church. Drop some relaxation CD's back to my client's house. Come home, make meals. Drive meals to respective houses. Get back in time for Ed to go to the Braves Game. Phew!

Got kids up (or rather, they got me up) and we made a healthy breakfast. Got them dressed (which for some reason takes FOREVER with two). Headed out the door to drop them off at our church's babysitting fundraiser. Got them buckled in and ready to go. Car won't start. Battery is dead. Mental note: don't let Fischer play in the car for fun anymore. It's hot, really hot. And humid. I'm sweating like I just ran 3 miles and I haven't gone anywhere. Luckily my friend Margo picked us up in her minivan without much fanfare. We dropped the kids off and ate brunch. Good times. Since my car was still sitting in my driveway, my good friend drove me to the store and then to my client's house so that I could mark that off my list. I got home, cooked, then drove food around. Got home, cooked dinner for my family. Ate. Ed left. The kids and I played checkers in my bedroom for an hour. I just got them to bed. And now I'm in a vegetative state in my bed. I feel like I've taken a painkiller. I'm so tired and can't move. I was supposed to run 3 miles for my marathon training today. Unfortunately there was no time. Unless I was going to get up at 6am- which was NOT going to happen since my children tag teamed me last night with wet diapers and paci retrievals.

Ed is going out of town tomorrow. So I'm going to have to just do my three miles with the kids in the jogger. The earlier I get out, the better. For some reason mornings are so hard to me to get motivated to run. Ya know those clips of people still in the middle of the screen and other people around them are moving in hyper speed and all blurry? I feel that way in the morning with my kids. It takes me a while to snap out of it. But, I'll manage it. I always do.

Did well on the eating front. I'm thinking less and less about food, which is good. I'm enoying tasty treats, but not going overboard.

Here's my tracker:

Breakfast:
All Bran Cereal
Skim milk

Lunch:
The Flying Biscuit Breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 chicken sausage patties, 1 whole wheat biscuit and grits. I ate all but one patty and half my biscuit.

Snack:
Starbucks- Doube tall, non fat, no whip, sugar free Cinnamon Dulce Latte

Dinner:
Veg All Cassarole (http://tinyurl.com/24putw)
Broccoli Salad (http://tinyurl.com/2cohr8)

Day Two of eating intuitively and the scale is showing a loss! I feel good. I think I may have overeaten slightly at dinner. It was rice and it hit me late in the game. But, it's all part process. Saturday I forgot to brag that I ran 6 miles! And my toe was totally cool with it. LOL I'm doing this marathon training schedule: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/novices.html. I'm trying to follow it pretty closely. Today is a rest day. :)

Here's my tracker for today:

1/2 bagel with lite cream cheese
Mocha

A couple bites of Amelia's PB&J

Cup of Chile
Saltienes
1 dallup of ff plain yogurt (instead of sour cream)

1 popsicle

1 1/2 cups brown rice
peas
bbq sauce (I know it's weird- I like it all mixed together)

And I'm full!

Tomorrow should be fun. My church is having a fundraiser for an African trip. They're watching the kiddos tomorrow from 11-2pm! I'm going to meet some friends and we're eating again at the Flying Biscuit. LOVE that place.

Ok, I had a revelation last night. For months now I've felt cornered in by limitations with my food. Whether it was points or certain foods I had to avoid- I felt boxed in and I think it has something to do with my desire to binge. I've been reading a book called "Lose It For Life" and I have to say it's "reading my mail." Basically it encourages intuitive eating and healthy choices. There are no "rules." It isn't a diet, it's more like a philosophy. They even says it's "doable" with Weight Watchers. I was particualary hit by the "emotional hunger" they talk about. How to distinguish physical hunger from emotional hunger. The more I read, the more I felt like this book was describing what I've been struggling with the last few months. While they say you can apply this mindset with any diet, they do add that being on a "diet" only reenforces the binge mentality. Which makes sense. And so the more and more I'm reading this, the more and more I feel like I'm cheating on WWs. LOL And while I credit WWs with helping me lose the bulk of my weight, I feel like I need a fresh approach. I need to work on living this out and not just adhering to rules. So, I talked to Ed about it and told him my fears of going off WWs and doing this and how I was worried I was just trying to find another "magic pill," yada, yada, yada. He actually thought it was a good idea. He knows me well and said that I get in ruts when I'm not able to change things up. And right now I'm definitely in a rut. I feel like my whole day is dominated by what I'm going to eat, where I can eat and how much I can eat. But what I really desire is freedom from this. I want the freedom to stop thinking about food. I want the freedom to eat anything I want (within reason) and just stop when I'm full. And this is basically what Lose It For Life is promoting. There are no gimicks or food guides, no counting or "off limit" foods, but simply teaching how to eat normally and in moderation. And that's really what we all need to learn.

So, I'm giving it a try. I'm doing it for 3 weeks and I'm just going to see how it works. If I feel like it's not working or I gain- I'm back on WWs. But, I think I owe it to myself to find something that works for ME. Afterall, this weightloss thing is a foward journey where I have to adapt to what works. So, here I go!

The family went to Flying Biscuit this morning for breakfast. It was so nice. I felt so free and had zero stress or guilt about ordering what I wanted. It was such a nice feeling. And I listened to when I felt full and quit eating. There was half my food still on my plate, but I really was content.

Anyway, here's my tracker so far:

Flying Biscuit Breakfast Plate: 2 eggs, 1 wheat biscuit, apple butter, chicken sausage and grits. I had half of everything. :)

Mocha from Starbucks

Chicken, spinach and goat cheese quesadilla (1/2, 1 tortilla) Left about a 1/4 of it on my plate because I was full. IT WAS GOOD!

I'll update with the rest of the day later. :)

So, if I'm missing in action for a few days, you can safely assume I'm up to no good. I had an emotionally hard week last week and couldn't bring myself to eat at all. I got on the scale at one point and was 139 lbs. And then last Sunday I felt better and started to eat again. I think the starving and then eating screwed up my metabolism. I got on the scale this morning and it was 144! I really suck at this maintainance thing. *sigh* Then last night we had some people over for poker and I had my "game plan" of fat free popcorn and diet ginger ale to snack on. I snacked on that and then someone came that hadn't eaten dinner, so they ordered a pizza. I had no feeling of hunger or even wanting pizza until it came and I ate 2 PIECES!!! WTH??? It's like I have the momentary lapses where I eat and don't think. It made me feel really awful. I get so mad at myself and then feel like I'm falling off the wagon. You know those studies your read where people lose a bunch of weight but aren't able to keep it off and gain it all back and then some? I'm terrified that'll be me. So everytime I slip up, I fall into that mind set of feeling out of control and slipping back into my old self. Like I'm simply a statistic.

I'm due for my period in a couple days, which could explain the icky bloating and gain, but it certainly doesn't explain all of it. I know I need to once again reign myself in and just start fresh. I'm such a numbers person. If they scale says I've gain, then I eat like I want to gain. If it says I've lost, I'll stay OP rather effortlessly. One thing I'm learning is to not rely souly on the scale. But rather how I feel. If I eat like butt, well then I'll feel like butt. If I eat well, I'll feel better, have more energy and have a good outlook on everything. So why would I choose to eat awful when I don't have to? That, my friends, is the biggest mystery of all.

Today has been good. I've sort of experimented with Core again. Mainly because I'm tired of feeling so bloated and on Core I felt better- even though I was lacking my staple endulgences.

Here's my tracker so far:

Breakfast:
All Bran cereal
Skim milk
1 sliced up banana

Lunch:
Chicken Salad from Pangea. It come with carrots, fresh ginger, fresh, roasted veggies and a yummy vinegarette.

Snack:
Nf, sf Latte

Dinner:
I'll probably make some vegetarian chile with avacado and Fage yogurt to go with. Oh- and a fresh tomato from my garden!

I can do this.... I know I can.

Doing much better. I was in a funk and was having a hard time even eating. I didn't really count points at all. Which, looking back was probably a good thing. I needed a break. My weight has stayed put. Today is Monday and a new week.

I'm off to the gym for my first attempt at fitness again since my toe drama. Body sculpting. I'm looking forward to it. Then, we're going out to dinner with some friends to a pizza place. I've got lots of points left so I'll get a salad and pizza. :)

Here's my tracker:

Skipped breakfast (too busy)

TJ's Mid East Feast (pre prackaged thing with pita, hummus, tabouli, and some other dip thingy)= 9pts

1 slice pizza=7 pts
1 salad=5 pt


That leaves 3 pts to have a treat later.

I'm in a rut. Surprsingly, it's not a weight related rut. I'm down to 139 again according to my scale. I think I'm in a life rut. Food is still an all dominately thing in my life. But I kinda had this revelation two days ago that there is something that is causing this to happen. There is some whole I'm trying to fill. And so the last two days I've actually had a hard time eating. I've had a horrible stomach ache. I don't know if it's nerve related or purely physcial. I just feel unrooted and over everything. I'm tired of counting points, I'm tired of wanting to run and not being able too (damn toe), I'm tired of cooking, I'm tired of thinking, I'm tired of being tired. *sigh*

I have this need to get in the car and just keep driving. Maybe I'm having a mid life crisis at 29. ? I read little pieces of "The Five Love Languages For Kids" at Barnes&Nobles a couple weeks ago and was really excited to give back to my kids what they're specific love language is. For Fischer it's "quality time." But then I thought: what kid doesn't want quality time? So I've been playing with him on the floor. Making lots of eye contact, having undistracted conversations with him, doing puzzles, etc. And it occured to me that I never got that as a child. I know my parents did the best they could. But I don't remember having consistent, long, undistracted attention. They worked full time. I was always in sports and had a very busy life. But when things slowed down, I was anxious. I do remember going to food in those moments. Eating comforted me. Made me feel full and loved. I also remember everyone telling me to eat. I was an athlete and burned everything I ate up. I remember hearing my mom say: "She eats all the time and doesn't gain an oz." a lot. And I think I just prided myself on that through highschool. I specifically remember eating an entire pizza in front of my friends just to prove I could eat a ton. I was this toned, thin, size 2-4 girl that ate like a football player. Then around my senior year I began to gain a little. It freaked me out. By college I had put on 30 ish pounds. It never really occurred to me to diet until my sophmore year in college. Enter Atkins diet.... Lost 20 lbs. Got married. Enter Vegan diet. Lost 20 lbs. Got pregnant. Gain 65 lbs. Continue eating like a football player. Lose some of the weight, but not all. Get pregnant again. Eat like a football player. And then start this blog and join Weigh Watchers. And here I am. I lost all my weight, feel good. Back down to highschool size (kinda) and yet here I am more bewildered and confused about food than ever.

I just wish for one day I could not think about food and what to eat. I wish I was born with that chromosome that says: "Hey, I'm hungry, I'll eat and then stop when I'm full!" What a concept. You'd think with all the technology in the worlds that they would have discovered the "secret" to food related issues. But, then again, the truth is there isn't a secret. It's either a thorn in your side the rest of your life, or it isn't. I, obviously, fit into the former.

I almost didn't post because I feel so weird lately. But I figure, this is real and this is life, no sense in pretending. To help lighten things up, I'll post a pic of my friend and I dancing in my living room the other night. That made me happy. :)

Well, I'm feeling a bit better. My "nubbin" is feeling ok and the pressure is starting to decrease. I'm really bummed that I can't be as active as I want to. I think I'm going to get some pilates dvd's and focus on my core while my toes are healing. :)

So I weighed in this morning at WWs. 139.6 lbs. My leader pulled me aside and said: "Look Jen, you look great. You're well within the range of what is healthy for your height. How about we call 140 lbs your goal and you can lose more if you want, but that way you don't have to keep paying us." I was like: "OKAY!" So, my plan for tonight is to get all dressed up and celebrate my goal weight at my night meeting. I'm going to print out my "big" pictures so that I can show how far I've come. Then I just need to weigh in at or within 2 lbs of 140 lbs for 6 weeks and I am officially a lifetimer!!!

Yipeeee!

Here's my tracker so far:

WW muffin: 3 pts
Mocha: 3 pts

Left over homemade Chicken-Curry-Coconut Soup: 5 pts
2 slices sourdough bread: 4 pts

I have 7 pts left for supper. I'm going to pick up something after my weigh in. I might splurge with flexies and get a big burrito from Willy's. I might not. We'll see what I feel like....