Celebrations

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Oh look, then and now!!

Yesterday in my Weight Watchers meeting my leader closed the meeting by saying:

We will continue to do the things we celebrate.  The small things make a big difference in the long run.

She's absolutely right.  When I was losing weight it was easy to celebrate the small things - the five pound increments, the milestones, the increase in activity.  However, now that I've lost the weight there are less things to celebrate.  A friend of mine, Carrie (she lost 150 pounds on Weight Watchers), and I were discussing this a few weeks ago and agreed that this is probably one of the things that makes maintenance hard.

So, with that in mind here are some of the small things that I've celebrated in the past... and things I want to continue celebrating going forward.  Things I previously celebrated:

1. Able to sit in an airplane seat with no seat belt extender
2. Able to put the airplane tray table down without being uncomfortable
3. Able to shop in any store (not just plus size stores)
4. Able to walk different distances:  first around the block, then 5K, then 9K, then 10K
5. Able to complete a basic running program and then half marathon training
6. Able to eat a meal and not be sick within twenty minutes (seriously, it has happened dozens of times.  Ask Dan or Sheri!)

Here are things that I will continue to celebrate:

1. Squash trigger food cravings, one day at a time
2. Finish a half marathon in less than 2 hours
3. Honestly measure/track what I eat/drink to stay focused

The lists are not all inclusive but are definitely a good starting place.  What little things do you celebrate?  How do you celebrate them?

Bread vs. Activity

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Look!  More activity!  Also, more weight.
Oops

If you're friends with me on Facebook you've likely seen me comment about how my half marathon training has begun, again.  I'm not sure why I didn't mention this on other social media channels.  Ooops.  Anyway, I went to my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday and stepped on the scale and my heart sank.  After last week's loss I was excited to be back on track.  However, the scale had other ideas and registered a gain this week.  At first I attributed it to the two amazing oatmeal raisin date cookies that I ate on Sunday.  Or the chips and hummus.  Or the pizza that I ate on Saturday.  And it may very well have been related to these things but I also realized that it could be related to the increase in activity.  Or *gasp* the fact that I, practically single handedly, ate an entire loaf of bread in less than week.

One of the reason that I really like Weight Watchers is that no food is off limits.  So while I dislike saying that I'm going to avoid any particular item, I do perhaps need to scale back the amount that I am eating.  I don't know that I'm removing bread from my diet forever but for now while I'm dealing with these stubborn pounds I will.  I think I also need to go back to tracking how much protein I'm getting in per day.  As I was nearing my goal weight that was one of the things I was tracking consistently but I've really gotten away from it.  The final change that I know I need to make is to reign in the amount of fruit that I'm eating.  I've been using fruit as both a snack and treat but I know that the quantity that I'm eating is WAY over the recommended daily allowance.  That's my plan and while it seems like a lot, I am going to try to implement all of these as smaller changes so that I can make them my healthy routines, again.

Have you made any realizations lately?