Category Archives: Weight Loss

Weight Watchers Weigh-In

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I’m not a slave to the scale, so when I began weighing myself every week while on Weight Watchers, I was really more annoyed than anything. I was (and still am) working out a lot, lifting weights, building muscle, so even though I was getting smaller in inches, the number of the scale wasn’t budging very much. As a result, I thought it’d be more beneficial to only weigh in on the first of every month so that I could at least have some idea of where my weight is.

Well, yesterday was the first of April, and in this last month I’ve lost 2.5 lbs. So excited. Even though that number isn’t very big, I’m still very proud, and hopefully next week when I check in with measurements, I will have lost even more inches.

(via Reasons to be Fit)

Weight Watchers Weekly Update

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In all honesty, this past week I wasn’t as diligent as I should have been in terms of tracking my food intake, limiting my alcohol consumption, and working out. I saw some success last week and that made me slack a little bit. Dolvett on Biggest Loser would be disappointed, and I would not want to disappoint that specimen of a man. Luckily, I was still good enough that I saw some losses. This is inspiration to get back on track, not slack off:

In the last 7 days:

Hips: -0.8 in

Bust: -1 in

Waist: -0.5 in

Thighs: -0.25 in each

Total: -2.8 inches

Also, check out this tumblr: Reasons to be Fit. Very inspiring for anyone who’s looking for a reason to be fit.

Measured Success

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As some of you may know, in my journey to lose weight, get healthier, and become more fit I’ve decided to stay away from the scale. I weigh in once a month just to have a rough idea of where my weight is, but other than that I don’t pay too much attention to the number. As I continue to lift and work out, my body changes while the number on the scale often won’t. Instead of continually weighing in and being discouraged that the number isn’t moving, I’ve decided to base my successes off measurements. That being said, in the past 3 weeks, my measurements have changed as follows:

Arms: -1.25 inches each

Hips: -0.5 inches

Waist: -2.5 inches

That’s 5.5 inches off my body. I call that a success! Who cares what the number says.

Skinny Blackberry Mojitos

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I never tried mojitos in the past because I really don’t like mint. Well, I thought I didn’t like mint. Turns out I don’t like peppermint, which is very different from fresh mint. Fresh mint is crisp, clean, and refreshing, which is probably why the mojito is known as a crisp, clean, and refreshing warm-weather drink.

Because I’m still in the process of losing weight, I decided to make this recipe with Truvia instead of sugar. I couldn’t even tell the difference. Enjoy!

Skinny Blackberry Mojitos

1/2 fresh lime, cut into 4 pieces

10-15 fresh mint leaves, torn into small pieces

2 blackberries

3 packets Truvia

ice cubes

1.5 oz (1 shot) of clear rum (Bacardi)

seltzer water

muddler

Place 2 of the 4 lime pieces and the mint leaves at bottom of a sturdy tumbler. Use the muddler to crush the lime and the mint, releasing all the juices and flavors from both. Mash until the mint leaves are dark in color and the lime is pretty well smushed (that’s the technical term).

Add the blackberries, truvia, and last 2 pieces of lime to the glass. Again, use the muddler to crush and mash everything up. It won’t look pretty, but that’s the point.

Add 3 or 4 ice cubes to the tumbler, leaving the smashed mixture under the ice cubes. Pour the shot of rum over the top of the cubes. Fill up the remainder of the cup with seltzer water. Mix lightly.

Note: Best to drink this with a straw, otherwise you will be eating mint leaves

Moo Shu Tofu

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I must admit, I love Chinese food. Chinese food, however, does not usually love me back. It doesn’t love my thighs or my love handles or the number on the scale. It doesn’t love my skinny jeans, and it certainly doesn’t love the bikini I want to wear this summer. The pain of this unrequited love has left me only one option: to try to make my own healthy version of Chinese food.

Am I aware that this will taste absolutely nothing like the deliciousness that is real  Chinese food (or at least Americanized Chinese food I get down the street from Fortune Panda)? Yeah. I am. But that’s ok. The hoisin sauce in this recipe almost makes me feel like I’m eating Chinese food, so it holds my cravings over for now.

This recipe is also perfect for a weeknight meal as the majority of the ingredients are already chopped and prepped for you. Took me 20 min to make total. Perfection.

(Adapted from Weight Watchers)

Moo Shu Tofu

  • 1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
  • 1 package of Nasoya Light Firm Tofu, cut into 1-inch chunks
  • 2 cups packaged coleslaw mix (shredded cabbage and carrots)
  • 2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 red bell pepper, sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 tbsp ginger, minced
  • 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
  • a couple medium sized, low-carb tortillas (only if you want – I didn’t use them)
  • jar of hoisin sauce
  1. Heat up a skillet or stock pot over medium high heat. Add a quarter inch of vegetable broth and add tofu. Continue to add broth as it evaporates. Flip tofu after a few minutes, when it’s starting to look golden brown.
  2. After tofu is golden brown on both sides, remove from pan and put aside on a plate
  3. Add another splash of vegetable broth and add all of the vegetables. Let vegetables cook over medium-high heat until crisp-tender (oxymoron, I know, you get it). Continue to add broth as it is needed to keep steam rising from the bottom of the pan. The steam will cook the veggies
  4. Remove vegetables from heat and add soy sauce to taste (roughly 2 tbsp)
  5. Spoon vegetables onto your plate (or into your tortilla) and place some tofu cubes on top.
  6. Top vegetable-tofu mixture with about 2 tbsp hoisin sauce (or however much you’d like)

Where did you go?

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So, where are those weekly weight watchers check in? Why haven’t you been writing? We’re waiting for posts here Ms. Murphy. These are things I’m sure some of you are wondering, some of you don’t care about (I get it, it’s cool), and some of you have actually said to me.  Well, my path with weight watchers has changed a bit. I’m still following the plan as I really love the new points+ system, but I’m not weighing myself every week as planned. I’m weighing myself every month.

As I take on this new, healthier lifestyle, I’m working out, building muscle, and subsequently staying the same weight or maybe even gaining. I’ve decided that I can’t let myself be a slave to the scale – I need to base my success based on how I feel, how I look, how my clothes fit, and my measurements. Within those four critera lies true success. Not in a number on a scale.

That being said, my next weigh in will be on March 1. If the number isn’t much better, whatever. It’s life. It’s all about how I feel and how my clothes fit.

I’m really taking inspiration these days from fitness posts on Pinterest as well as on Tumblr. Join up and let’s motivate each other, together.

Weight Watchers

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Through the holidays and football Sundays and Superbowl Sunday, I’ve really let myself do whatever I want. I ate and ate and ate, and drank and drank and drank, and you know what? I feel like crap.

As a result, I’ve decided to take control and to really invest in myself and my body. I also invested in Weight Watchers, the program that I hope will help me regain control. I’ve tried WW before only to drop out of it because I wasn’t mentally ready for the journey. I feel that now is as good a time as any to work on both my mental health and physical health. This journey is going to be long, and at times painful, but anything that’s worth having is worth sacrificing for. I’m looking to lose around 40 lbs, and I’m going to check in about once a week to let you know if the scale is moving, how my eating and exercise have been going, and overall just how I feel.

In case any of you are interested in Weight Watchers, it’s a little under 20 bucks a month. It’s based on a points system that factors in carbs, protein, fiber, and fat. No restricting. No strict calorie counting. It’s about putting good food into your body, and being rewarded for it, but also letting yourself have those times where you eat what you want (which is good for people like me who love to go out). They have all sorts of cheat sheets for the best drinks to have, best pizza to have, best burger to have, etc, when you do have one of those days where you want to eat whatever.

Wish me luck, and hopefully next Monday I’ll have seen a loss on the scale.

The New Rules of Lifting for Women

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The New Rules of Lifting for Women is a book I discovered while perusing the forums on MFP. Best 17 bucks I’ve ever spent.

In college I was always a pretty big lifter (for a girl). Bench was never my thing, but I had a pretty big squat max (225, I don’t want to talk about it). After I stopped playing softball, I swore to myself I would never again pick up another weight. I didn’t want to be big or bulky anymore and the days where I needed the big squat max were long behind me. After about a year or so, I started dabbling in the weight room again – a bicep curl here, a tricep extension there – but I never really did anything for fear of getting big again. Truthfully, I missed the intensity of lifting. Distance running doesn’t provide the same intensity nor is it as interesting. I still liked running, but I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would never really lift again. Well, after reading the New Rules of Lifting for Women, I realized that I can lift again AND not be a hulk. After all, the subtitle of the book is “lift like a man, look like a goddess.” Obviously I already look like a goddess, so this will just make me a mega-goddess.

For the last week I have been pretty much incapacitated by soreness – my quads feel like they’re peeling off the front of my legs, my abs are so sore I can barely sit up after laying down, I have to go down the stairs holding the hand rail for fear my legs will give out from under me. It hurts so good. It’s worth it. Even through the soreness, I can feel my body getting stronger. I’m back to squatting, dead lifting, shoulder pressing, split squatting – everything I used to do in college, but hopefully with a bit of a different outcome. Now, I’m not lifting as heavy as I did in college, but I’m also eating better than I did in college. The combination of a nutritionally sound diet and a solid lifting program (and the occasional interval sprint workout) will hopefully allow me to become lean-strong instead of bulky-strong. That’s the goal. And what’s the worst thing that can happen, I get too big? If that happens again, I’ll back off on lifting a little. Not a big deal.

The workout plans are extensive and comprehensive, laying out a 6-month program with everything nailed down but the actual size of the weights you are comfortable using. The exercises are detailed in both text and pictures, and the plan is complete with number of workouts per week, number of sets, number of reps – everything you need to know to be successful. And being successful is what I plan on doing. I’ll check back in soon and let you know how it’s going, what changes I’ve seen, and if I’m still enjoying it as much as I am now.

Running – All or Nothing?

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With the help of my friends on MFP over the past few days, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will not continue to train for a 10k or a half-marathon. This was a hard decision to come to as I really feel like I’m letting myself down and giving up. With the help of others, though, I’ve realized that I’m not giving up, and I shouldn’t feel like I’m letting myself down.

Let me explain. I’ve been an “all or nothing” kind of person my whole life. I go big, or go home. I don’t try, I do. And when I stop doing something before I feel I’ve completed it, well, I don’t do that. If I know I won’t complete something, I just won’t start it in the first place. When I do something, I commit to it.

Along with my “all or nothing” attitude (that often negatively impacts my weight loss), if there’s one thing I’ve truly learned from  journey, it’s that in order to be successful I have to enjoy what I’m doing. The Atkins diet never worked because I love carbs. Weight Watchers never worked because I didn’t understand how to calculate points and it just seemed silly to pay for a program that essentially counts calories for you. Using the elliptical never worked because my feet always go numb (weird, huh?).

Running was one thing that, with the help of C25k, I learned to really enjoy. I loved the process, and subsequently I now love to run 5k’s. Even on the hardest days of C25k, I really enjoyed myself. But, I started Bridge to 10k, and I have to be honest – I didn’t love it. But I started it, and the “all or nothing” in me told me to keep going. I started it, and I had to finish it. So I kept going. But the more I kept going, the less and less I enjoyed what I was doing, and the more and more I started having excuses for why I couldn’t run on particular days – the run takes an hour and I only have 45 minutes, I need to shower before I go to XYZ place, I’m sick, I’m tired, I’ll just eat really well today.

After I did convince myself to run on particular days, my body doesn’t feel the way it used to when I ran. The way my body feels after I’m on the treadmill for an hour isn’t that invigorating endorphin high I always got from running for 35-40 minutes. It’s pain. It’s my aching knees and cramping calves. It’s relief when the run is over because I’ve been bored for the last 15 minutes. It’s anxiety knowing that the next day I’ll barely be able to walk. And you know, I don’t like that. With the help of my friends on MFP, I’ve realized that there is nothing wrong with running as long as I feel, or as short as I feel, on any given day. I do not have to follow any program other than the one my body lays out for me. I will listen to my body, and run as much as I want, whenever I want.

And for leaving my “all or nothing” mentality in the dust? For once in my life, I’m fine with that.

B210K

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As you may or may not know, I finished C25K last week. Now I’m venturing into the land of B210K (or Bridge to 10K). I finished week 1 of B210K yesterday and let me just say, my body is not happy. I can feel my genetics are fighting me every step of the way.

Lauren. What are you doing? You know Murphy’s were never meant to be runners. I’m proving this to you by making your knees feel like rubber and your body incapable of moving. And your lungs? Yeah I’m setting those on fire.

Well, genetics. I’m fighting back. In my three days of running for week 1, I ran 4.1 miles, 3.8 miles, and 4.2 miles. That’s a lot of miles for someone who despised running a mere two months ago. I will continue to keep you updated on my progress, and I’ll be sure to let you know if I’m ever able to overcome my genetics – which I don’t actually see as a possibility, but oh well. What are you gonna do?

For next week. I will complete week 2 of B210K (15 min run/1 min walk, x3). Woo!

[Weight loss side note: my weight is back down to where it was pre-Jessie's visit. Which is a good thing. Check out my MFP profile for updates.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/missxlaur]