My name is Jen

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And I have a food addiction.  Over the weekend we went to a St. Patrick's party thrown by our friends.  There was so much delicious food and drink.  Oh so much food.  That I couldn't stop eating.  Or drinking.  By the end of the evening I was so sick to my stomach.  On the way home Dan kept commenting on how good the food was and it nearly made me throw up.  Just the thought of food was too much for me at that point.  I certainly hated how I felt after eating all of that.  I got on my home scale on Sunday morning and I knew I'd be up (and I was) but it was over and done with so I could only move on.

When I got on the scale at weigh in today I was a little surprised that I was exactly the same weight as last week.  Neither good, nor bad.  Just.... the same.  My friend, Melany, asked if I ate corned beef over the weekend (uh... duh?) and said that I was likely still salty.  Who knows... what I do know is that I really need to get the social eating under control.  When we eat at home or even at restaurants I am able to control what, and more importantly how much, I eat by ordering what I want/need.  When the food is available in a more buffet like setting I have no control.  I definitely need to find some control in that situation.

Question:  Have you found situations that surprised you?  Workouts you loved more than anything?  Food situations that make you wonder WTF?  Have you mastered the buffet?  If so, how?

Fishing + Food + Hiking + Beer + Biking + Cookies = woah

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Hiking the Harding Ice Trail - Seward, AK

Oh my gosh!  I can't believe my vacation is already over.  Before I start babbling about things let me thank my guest posters: Abby, Mercedes and Stephanie.  I hope that you enjoyed their posts as much as I did when I read them not to mention that they are each amazing women who have been an inspiration as well as friends.  Now... let's talk about vacation and eating and working out....

Fat Bikes Mountain Biking - Cooper Landing, AK

Our vacation was two weeks long driving lots of miles (nearly 1800) through Alaska and it was the most amazing vacation.  While we weren't always active we were always busy!  Some days we spent 8-10 hours fishing, we biked a few days and hiked a few days but some days were just spent in transit.  Seriously, the drive from Homer to Healy takes FOREVER.  Add this to the fact that early on in the trip I decided it was vacation and I was going to eat what I wanted while on vacation but when we got home that I'd get back into my routine.  I still tried to make healthier choices, grilled or broiled fish vs. batter fried, but I definitely treated myself.  Knowing everything I ate and drank I wasn't surprised yesterday when the scale said I gained and it's just a little more motivation to get back on track before training for my half marathon starts.

What do you do when you go on vacation?  How do you stay active or on plan?

That can't be right...

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About a month ago we were on our way to my in-laws house to celebrate Thanksgiving (we celebrated early with them because we were going to be out of town on the actual day) and we stopped to get gas.  I ran in to get a couple of drinks and I found Arizona Cranberry Ice Tea.  I thought it was terribly festive so I tried it and it was awesome.  I looked around every where I went but I couldn't find it, except at this one gas station.  Until last night.  I found the motherload... BRILLIANT!  I almost started to load up the cart and then thought I should probably calculate the Points+ value on that.  So I did and the can was 6 points.  Then I calculated the Points+ value on a regular can of Arizona Lemon Iced Tea and it was 9 points.  NINE FREAKING POINTS!!!  Well that certainly explains why my weight loss hasn't been very much the last few weeks!  I'd been drinking 3-4 cans per week.  Apparently I'm back to Diet Snapple (which is delicious) or figuring out how to make my own Cranberry Iced Tea.

Have you ever thought you were doing really well and then found out that you made a huge error like this?

If you're looking for a holiday alternative to cookies - try out my Gingerbread Muffin Recipe.

Celebrating Oktoberfest

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One of the hardest parts of changing my lifestyle is monitoring and limiting my intake of good craft beer.  This is especially hard because my husband is an award winning home brewer.  Some people are like, well gees, who cares?  If you've had really good craft beer, you would.  Some people have coffee or a snack that they absolutely have to have but for me it's a nice glass of beer.

After we got married everyone kept telling us that they had so much fun at our wedding reception.  When people keep telling you this, how can you not think about having another party?  Maybe not as big and maybe without such formal clothes but we wanted to get together with those we loved most and have a good time.  This lead us to the decision that we'd combine our desire for a party with Dan's ability to brew good beer.

This also brings us to the major challenge of the week.  On Sunday we celebrated our fourth annual McTews Oktoberfest.  We had seven different home brewed beers on tap, food catered from Der Rathskeller in Rockford and soft pretzels from Austrian Bakery & Deli in Chicago.  The day was awesome.  We had about 30 people here and we ate and drank like fools.  Ok, maybe the eating and drinking like a fool was just me.  I planned in advance that it would essentially be a bad weekend.  I wanted to enjoy myself and not really worry about food.

When I got my plate I thought I was very conservative.  I only took a small amount of sausage, about a half cup of sauerkraut, a half cup of lyonaise potatoes and some fresh vegetables and dip.  The beer is kind of where the wheels came off the bus.  First off, I didn't realize that plastic cups came in 18 oz. size.  Secondly, I don't remember how many beers I had.  So, journaling my food/drink for Saturday became much more difficult than I had hoped.

Things only got a little bit worse on Sunday because we had left overs.  And the food was really good.  I guess maybe my lifestyle change hasn't quite settled in enough to get me through the soft pretzels and Sunday left overs.

I know that tomorrow is another day and that I didn't put the weight on in one weekend so I can't expect it to come off in one weekend.  So, now we get back on the bus and start again.

The one good thing that came out of the weekend was the time I got to spend with one of my besties, Krissy.  We talked about WW, my journey and she asked me why I wasn't blogging about this because others may find comfort or inspiration in the things I've learned and humor in the stupid things I've done.  So, on Sunday night I started this blog.  I went back through my journal and wrote posts for all the weeks since I started and now we're really in present time so... let's enjoy the ride I guess!  I'll blog about my weight management goals, achievements and failures but I'll probably also throw in some other fun stuff too.  I hope you enjoy this and I hope that you'll participate through the comments section to let me know what you think.

I was kind of dreading weigh-in this week both because of the party as well as the pre-party party that we had on Friday night with our besties Jeremy & Krissy.  I was tremendously surprised, and there are witnesses who will attest to my surprise, when the scale said I lost 3.6 pounds.  The woman who was doing the weigh in said, 3.6 that's great.  My response?

3.6??
Pounds? 
Really?

Yep - and I've got the sticker in my weigh-in journal to prove it.