Big Love and It's Connection to My Weight Loss Journey

Spoiler Alert - I'm going to talk about the Big Love series finale in today's post and although I'm not going to give anything away, I just wanted to give you a head's up if you haven't watched it yet.

Jim and I have watched Big Love since its debut five seasons ago. The show sure has taken a few crazy turns over the last couple of seasons and to me this last season barely resembles the first season. But one thing is clear to me - I cared about these characters a great deal.

As we started watching the series finale last night, I told Jim - "let's go ahead and get this over with." I hadn't been that invested in the story the last two seasons as I was the first three. I thought I was ready to be done with the series. But as the closing credits rolled and "God Only Knows" played in the background I felt a tug at my heart, having to say goodbye to these characters.

I was listening to Terry Gross interview the creators of Big Love today and one of the creators talked about how invested he became with the characters. He said they are in his head 24/7, while he's in the shower, cooking dinner or "talking" to them while he's washing dishes - they characters are always with him and how hard it's been for him to let them go.

I can relate to what the Big Love creator was saying about his "characters," to my wellness journey. When I started this journey, I had NO IDEA how invested I would become with all the "characters" that go into making this journey a success. I didn't realized I would be thinking about Weight Watcher Points all the time - constantly reaching for my phone or laptop to calculate points. I've come to depend on those tools to help me every single day.

I didn't realize that this blog would become a "character." My blog is with me 24/7. Just because I don't blog every day doesn't mean I'm not thinking about blogging. Most of the time when I'm in my car by myself I'm composing blog posts in my head. When I go out to eat or cook something at home, I think to snap a photo of it before I think about eating. I can't imagine not taking photos of myself in the dressing room trying on clothes.

And of course, Zumba is another character. "Zumba, Zumba, Zumba" (said in a Brady Bunch, Jan voice). There isn't a day that goes by that I don't talk or think about Zumba. I've written a lot lately about the relationships I've built thanks to Zumba. I celebrate my Zumba friends' successes with them and my heart aches for them when they're going through a difficult time.

All these "characters" make up my weight loss story. Without them, I would have gotten bored and moved onto a different story. I'm invested in all these "characters" and I couldn't imagine them not being a part of my life. Some characters will have more prominence in my life, others might eventually be written out of the story or be replaced with a new character mid-season, but they all have been important in getting me to where I am today.

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My favorite photo from this past weekend:

Jim and Jacob show off his Ron Weasley lego car they made together for Jacob's Pinewood Derby.



Weigh In and Pick A Number, Any Number

Weigh In Day
Previous weight - 194.6
Current weight - 193.6 (194, 196, 194.6, 193, 194.8 - pick one)
Difference - lost 1 pound

Total weight lost - 51.4 pounds

Activity
Monday - Zumba (60 min.)
Tuesday - Zumba (60 min.)
Wednesday - Zumba (60 min.)
Thursday - Zumba (60 min.)

I was about to throw my scale out the window this morning. I couldn't get a consistent reading. I saw everything from 196 to 193 and everything in between. Our scale is in our bathroom. I tried everything from changing the setting to kilograms, putting it on the carpet (I weighed 178 - who hoo), changing the batteries, putting it in the shower and having the screen read 4.4. I was able to get a reading of 193.6 a few times, so that's the number I'm going with.

I got to work and went down to the locker room to get on their old school spinny scale and it said I was around 193 even while wearing jeans and a sweater. I think I might have to start weighing in at the YMCA on their scales. I'm just frustrated because I had this same issue with our old scale and that's the reason I got the new one a few months ago and all the reviews said it was a consistent scale. Whatever, moving on.

I went shopping a lot on my lunch hour this week so I only posted one blog entry this week. I did really well with my eating and went to Zumba Monday-Thursday. I think I've finally found my schedule that will work for me. Mondays at 6 p.m. with Geraldine, Tuesdays at 7 p.m. with Tina, every 4th Wednesday at 6 p.m. with Lisa (until Scouts are over and then I'll pick up more Wednesday classes), Thursdays with Lindsay at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 9:45 a.m. with Geraldine.

Now, I probably won't make it to all of these classes every week, but for the next few weeks this will be my goal because I have to get out of the 190s - it's a mental thing for me now. I have to push through it. I also really like this schedule because with the 6 p.m. classes I still can be home for homework and bedtime after class.

I'm new to Lindsay's Thursday 8 p.m. class, but I'm really liking it. I thought it would be too late for me since I go to bed around 10 p.m., but I haven't had a problem falling asleep or being tired Friday morning so this is actually a great class for me since I can have dinner with the family and be there for the start of bed time. (yeah our kids have always gone to bed early - we start bedtime around 7:30 with jammies, bathroom and several bedtime stories, then they have downtime in their room to read until lights out around 9 p.m. [most of the time Gracie is already asleep by lights out] - it works well for us.)

We have a fun weekend planned. Karate tonight, some of the kid's friends coming over for a sleepover, LEGO convention on Saturday and Scout Pinewood Derby on Sunday.

And, I will think about my food choices this weekend. No more of this blowing through my weekly points in two days - it's just too stressful the rest of the week.

What's the $2 For?

Just a quick post before my lunch hour is over. I was kind of down yesterday during the day, but after Zumba and some family time last night, I picked back up. I did well with my points yesterday and the scale is back down to 194.6 this morning. With my normal patterns, I would expect it to go down a pound or so before Friday.

I bought some new work pants yesterday on my lunch hour. The ones I was wearing were literally falling down. I was kinda scared to walk around. I feel much more comfortable today. They are size 18 from JC Penney. It's weird - I picked out the same pant (brand name, style, etc.) in a 16W in the plus size section and was going to get them and then I just happened to find my way over to the career section in misses and saw they went up to an 18. I tried both on and they fit pretty much the same, but the misses were $2 cheaper. Hmm, interesting.

If I'm not completely wiped out tonight after Zumba I'll try and post again - I have some things swimming around in my head I want to write about. But for now here are a few of my favorite photos from this past weekend. We went duck pin bowling and it was a blast. 

Gracie and I were out of clean socks so we broke out our Halloween ones.

Weigh In and Seriously?

Weigh In Day
Previous weight - 194.4
Current weight - 194.6
Difference - gain .2 pounds

Total weight lost - 50.4 pounds

Activity
Friday - Zumba (120 min.)
Saturday - Zumba (60 min.)
Monday - Zumba (60 min.)
Wednesday - Zumba (60 min.)
Thursday - Zumba (60 min.)

Six hours of Zumba and I gained this week. I'm not going to lie, I'm really bummed about this. I must have either miscalculated food I had to guess at or I'm over estimating my exercise points. I really thought the scale would go down over the weekend (I weighed in at 194.6 on Friday morning) but it's only continued to go up because of my poor weekend eating choices. I really need to get control over my eating on the weekend. It really stinks that two days of not being 100% can screw up a whole week of dedication. Right now, by my calculations I have to Zumba four nights this week just to break even (that is if my calculations are correct). This is not the way I wanted to start my week. I'm going to have to start planning out my weekend eating. It's when we decide on the fly to go to a Mexican restaurant on Saturday night that I get in trouble. If I had time to think about it and get a game plan I think I could handle those situations better.

Hey, What Happened to Your C25K Posts?

Yeah, about that ...

I'm not doing it anymore.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I have my excuses reasons. But it boils down to it's not the right kind of activity for me for the limited amount of time I'm willing to give up to exercise. My main goal is to lose weight and walking/running for 25 minutes three times a week wasn't cutting it. I'm not totally ruling it out though. Maybe once I hit goal I'll try it again.

Please don't let me discourage any of you from your 5k dreams. To each his own right?

So, I just got back from a lunch trip to Trader Joe's. It's been a few months since I've been. Gracie has missed her Joe's O's and Jacob has been wanting the orange flavored cranberries.

I got a few new things to try out. That's always my favorite part of shopping there. Wanna see what I got?

Nom nom nom.

I'm going to try the cocoa in the banana/vanilla yogurt. I hope it tastes as good as it sounds in my head.

Tomorrow is weigh-in day but depending on what I see on the scale in the morning, I might postpone my weigh-in until Saturday morning. I've just worked so crazy hard this week to not show a loss.

Smell the Sugar

During the work week, I usually stop for a snack around 3 p.m. Yesterday I had a big salad for lunch so I didn't get hungry until about 4 p.m. I went up to the break room to grab a bowl and spoon and I saw a box sitting on the counter. I then remembered getting an e-mail in the morning about one of our vendors dropping off donuts for us (I read the e-mail, deleted it and forgot all about it). I opened the box and took a look at what we had - I saw a bear claw, a cinnimon donut and a couple of cake donuts. I could smell the sugar as soon as I opened the box. I closed the lid and went into the kitchen to grab my nonfat, vanilla organic yogurt from the fridge. On the counter I saw a huge cake tray with about a quarter of the cake on it covered by some parchment paper. I lifted the paper to see if it said anything on the cake and again was hit will the smell of sugar. I didn't see any writing so I put the paper back on, dished out my yogurt, and went back to my desk and ate my snack.

I was not tempted to eat the donuts or the cake. Now granted, if it was cookies and ice cream I may have had a harder time saying no, but with the donuts and cake - not so much. And do you know why that is? It was the smell of the sugar. It was so powerful, it literally made my stomach hurt a little just smelling it. I knew that if I had eaten either of those things I would have had a stomach ache from it.

Once upon a time if I had gone into the break room with the intention of having yogurt and saw the donuts, I would have eaten a donut instead. And then chased it with a slice of cake. Then on my way out of the office for the day I probably would have taken a couple of the donuts with me with my excuse ready if anyone asked ("they're for the kids") and then I would have promptly eaten them in the car on my way home.

When I first started working here 11 years ago we had donuts delivered every morning. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I think I gained at least 20 pounds the first couple of years I worked here.

I've talked about this all on my blog before but it's worth repeating. The safest place for me when it comes to my eating habits is at work. It used to be the opposite - I couldn't resist all the snacks that we have out all the time. They were always calling my name and I always gave into the cravings.

Everyone in my office knows that I eat healthy and exercise now. For some reason it makes it easier for me to make the right choices while I'm here. Plus the fact that I know those treats will never make me feel as good as working hard to lose weight does. It's just not worth it.

Zumba Glow Party for Leukemia and Lymphoma in Indianapolis

I'll get to the recap of the Zumba Glow Party in just a sec, but I have to start off with this photo of me from Friday night. Once I got home from dinner with the girls, I started downloading the photos to Facebook and then went to take a shower. After my shower I came back to my computer to start tagging the photos and that's when I saw this photo of me:

This is my favorite "after" photo of me to date. I couldn't get over how little my waist looked is.

For reference, this photo below of me on the left is from a Zumba event in July (I was around 217 pounds at the time, today I'm 194). Both shirts are Zumba size XL.

My shrinking waist is 100% a direct result of Zumba. It's all that hip and stomach work.

Ok, back to the event.

As luck would have it, I had the afternoon off from work, so I went home and took a quick nap. Once I was back up, I tried on some of the different Zumba tops I won in the eBay auction last week and decided on the one pictured above - I thought it would look the best at the "glow party." I got the kids clothes together for basketball practice and karate and picked them up at school. I then met Jim over at the YMCA to drop off the kids and then I headed to Heather's house to pick her up and make our way over to Fatima's house to catch a ride with her and Ashley.



Heather, Fatima and Ashley waiting at the registration table.

I know it's always going to be an adventure with Fatima around :) I made sure that Heather and I got to Fatima's house on time because I know she likes to be punctual, but it turns out that Fatima was running late and when we finally started on our way downtown to the Madame Walker Theater we were running behind schedule and it was stressing Fatima WAY out. We were approaching I-465 and I knew what was coming. It was a Friday night, in the middle of rush hour, in the rain and traffic was crawling on the interstate. We did manage to calm Fatima down and make our way onto I-65 and downtown in pretty good time. We wanted to get there pretty early, but only managed to get there about 10 minutes before it was supposed to start. They must have started a little later than scheduled because we were able to meet up with some of the other ladies from our YMCA and take some photos with them.

Lisa and Stephanie

Shannon, me and Beth

Ashley, me and Dawn (this is the photo I posted at the beginning of this post)





I also was able chat with Kim for a few minutes. She was the first Zumba instructor I ever had.

Beth and Kim

Kim did several routines that night it was so great to move to her choreography again.

So, as we were waiting for things to get started, our group started decking themselves out with glow in the dark stuff. We weren't sure what all the "glow party" would entail, but we quickly found out when they dimmed the lights and all you could see were neon necklaces everywhere.

There were instructors representing all sides of Indianapolis that were introduced while the crowd cheered (I read there were 200 people there) and then we quickly got started with the warm up. It always takes a little time for the crowd to work itself out at these events. You have to make sure you have enough room, and people will move around a bit to make sure they're not stepping on the person next to them. I was a little concerned about Zumba'ing in the dark, but my eyes adjusted and I was able to keep up.

The room was pretty small and it didn't take long before it got really hot inside. I was already drenched in sweat and had to put my hair up. We did several songs and then took a break do do a raffle drawing and that's when we found the rest of our group from the Y.

At this point they had the people who had been stuck at the back of the room switch places with those in front, so most of our group was hanging out in the back of the room. About an hour into the class, I started to socialize a bit more. It was really hard to see the instructors at the front of the room and nearly impossible to follow the moves, so most of us just started doing our own thing off to the side. It was fun. I took a break and finished a bottle of water and ate a Kashi bar since I didn't eat anything before.

I sweated a ton, but didn't feel like I worked out as hard as I do in class. My legs told me differently after I got out of the car later. Heather had her body bug on and it said she burned 900+ calories. We did a few more songs and then a group of us went up to the front of the room where some of our instructors were hanging out. One of the songs that we do in class with Tina called "Wiggle Wiggle" came on and it was a different routine than ours but we did ours any way off to the side.

My favorite songs of the night were the ones where they split the room down the middle and we did a "booty battle" which is basically a dance off between each side of the room. We do this in class and it's a riot. Fatima and I went to the front row of our side and we were shaking it with the best of them.

The event was winding down and a group of us paid to get this group photo.

We gathered our stuff, made sure we had everyone and were getting ready to head out of the theater when we heard a few choice words come out of Fatima's mouth. Apparently her water bottle wasn't closed completely and water spilled all over her bag including her phone. Fatima's phone is her life, so she was pretty upset about it. We got that situation under control as best we could and headed back out in the rain to the car to make our way to Little Mexico, a Mexican restaurant on the south side, to meet up for dinner. Fatima was still pretty concerned about her phone and I had remembered hearing that you can put your phone in rice to dry it out so I looked up some instructions on my phone to tell her. I was reading the steps to her as she was trying to find a gas station before we ran out of gas.

Step 1 - remove phone from water (best Step 1 tip ever)
Step 2 - do not turn the phone on (whoops, too late for that)
Step 3 - do not panic (I cracked up when I read this, because she was FREAKING OUT at the time)

Ok, so we were all cracking up at these steps and it became a joke the rest of the night and I think it will continue to be one of those funny things we talk about for a long time to come. (btw - she put her phone in rice over night and it worked fine the next day).

We made it to the restaurant and chowed down on chips and salsa. I opted for Diet Coke and my regular dish - pollo fundido. I ate about half of it and took the rest home for Jacob to eat the next day.

Here are some fun photos from dinner.

Fatima looks deceptively calm in this photo - believe me she was freaking out about her phone





It was a great night. I was a little wound up when I got home and it took me awhile to fall asleep. Jacob and Gracie's last basketball game was at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning and then I went to Geraldine's Zumba class at 9:45 - it was killer. I felt so great after class for about and hour and then I crashed and took a long nap :)

Oh yeah, I totally love taking photos at these events. I probably had about 50+ Facebook notifications from all the comments people were making on them. I can't wait for the next even in a few weeks.

Weigh In and You Better Bring It!

Weigh In Day
Previous weight - 195.2
Current weight - 194.4
Difference - lost .8 pounds

Total weight lost - 50.6 pounds

Activity
Monday - Zumba (60 min.)
Tuesday - Zumba (60 min.)
Thursday - Zumba (60 min.)

OH, IT'S ALREADY BEEN BROUGHT-EN!

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No one seemed to get my movie reference to Goodwill Hunting in last week's weigh in post. I put "Do You Like Apples?" in my title and after I posted my loss for the week I put "HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?"

Oh well, I thought it was funny. I'm trying it again this week - anyone know the movie I'm referencing? Maybe it's because the movies are so old - maybe I should start quoting Lesley Knope from Parks and Rec - love that show.

Anywho ...

Here's another photo of me from yesterday. I'm showing off one of my new Zumba eBay shirts before heading to Stephanie's class.

Tonight is the Zumba Glow Party. Can't wait!

Still Shocking

I'm still surprised when I see "before" photos of myself. I was looking through Disney vacation albums that my wonderful sister-in-law always puts together for us after our trips and I was surprised when I saw this photo of me and Jacob from our trip in 2007.

Here's a recent photo of myself.

And a side-by-side. You all know I love me a side-by-side shot.

You can see the difference right? Sometimes I second-guess myself.

Motivational Speaking Tour

The couple of times that I really tried to lose weight previously were when I was in college and right after I graduated from college. I count these two times as when I was really "trying" because I made a commitment to exercise. My exercise of choice was walking.

I remember getting up really early, before work and walking around the neighborhood. Thursday was always my favorite morning to walk because it was trash day and I would see interesting things set out next to the trashcans. Man, I was bored. Have I mentioned before that I used to hate exercising.

One of the things I would to do during these long, boring walks was imagine and practice a speech that I could give after I lost all my weight and was doing a motivational speaking tour. Ha! I don't think I lost even five pounds during either of these times I "tried" to lose weight with exercise (I know now I wasn't accomplishing that feat of calories in vs. calories out).

Does anyone else do this? Imagine themselves at their goal weight, speaking in front of crowd with a ginormous poster behind them with their before and after photo on it?

I mean this was way before blogs and Facebook and Twitter. I guess in a way, writing this blog is proclaiming to the world my motivational speech that I had practice on those walks. Yes, it is pretty much the same thing.

All Things Zumba

I had another great workout last night. I'm starting to feel my endurance build up again and feel myself getting stronger. It doesn't hurt that Geraldine is always shouting words of encouragement during class like "You're not tired!" and "Give me all you've got!" that makes me want to push harder and harder.

I had another lady come up to me after class and talk to me about my blog. I have to remember to start asking these ladies their names - I feel so bad that I can give them a proper shout out. She was super sweet and said she went back and read my blog from the beginning. A lot of times we all feel like we are so alone in this wellness journey but that is one thing that I have learned 100% from writing this blog is that there are so many of us going through the same things - the same struggles, the same successes. Everyone can relate and learn and teach. It's a great thing. So, super sweet lady from last night - please tell me your name again. I think you said you blog as well, so please share your blog url with me so I can start following you.

I'm also super SUPER excited about a Zumba event I'm going to this Friday. I haven't been to one since June and I've been itching to go. It seems like they always fall on Friday nights which is typically our mega family night with basketball, ballet and karate, but Gracie is taking karate with Jacob this session instead of ballet so it makes it easier to coordinate and my ever-supporting husband, Jim, was totally fine with me taking some me-time to go to the Zumba event on Friday. So it's a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and it's advertised as a "Glow Party" so we'll see what that's all about. I'm planning to take my camera like I did last time and take a ton of photos. Look for a recap on Saturday morning.

Something else that I've been having a lot of fun with lately is being the admin for a Zumba Facebook Group I created. It's a private group just for the ladies that take Zumba at my YMCA. I actually created the group on accident back in Novemberish when Facebook launched their new Group pages. I thought I was just creating something like a group e-mail list that I could use on my own, but quickly realized it was a great tool for us to use to talk about Zumba and socialize. This was great for me personally because I felt like I was talking about Zumba ALL THE TIME on my personal Facebook page and this was away to show my Zumba enthusiasm with all the my friends that know exactly what I was talking about. So it started with me creating the page and adding my 14 Facebook friends so that we could all chat with each other. Well, five months later we now have 82 group members of the page.  It's a closed group and you either have to be approved by me or invited by another group member so I'm pretty confident that the most, if not all, of those 82 people are actually people who take Zumba at my YMCA. Pretty impressive.

Anyway, something I started doing the last week or so is asking the group a "question of the day." Things like "what's your favorite Zumba song," "what do you eat before Zumba," or "why do you Zumba?" It's been a lot of fun reading the answers and I think I'm going to work on a list of questions so I can keep this idea going. It's fun to work on a social media strategy that doesn't have anything to do with work. I love seeing the group members getting engaged and contributing to the page. Also, I know I've had several people come up to me after class and talk to me about my blog (which I recently posted a link to on the group page) and it's made me feel so good to meet these people that I'd love to get some conversations going on the group page that could carry over to the class setting - I've gained so much personally from the social side of Zumba that I'd just love to see that happen for others as well.

And finally, I'm ecstatic about some new Zumba gear that I bought. I don't know about you all, but the girls at our YMCA are all about the Zumba gear. I only have one official Zumba shirt that I bought at the master class back in June and it's about time I got some more to add to my collection. Geraldine actually hooked me up with a shirt that's too big for her now and I also bought some shirts off eBay that were too big for the seller - I got them for about $10 a shirt which is a super deal. (This also is my way of telling Jim that when he sees that charge from Paypal that he knows what it's for). So expect more photos of me in my Zumba gear in the future.

Enough Zumba love for now. Have a great day everyone!

Weight Watchers Activity Points

I've had a couple of comments about how I used WW Activity Points and just want to copy and paste what Weight Watchers says online. I use Weight Watchers online exclusively and don't attend meetings or have a leader. Here's what WW says:

"All activity you earn will be available to you during the week.

When you earn activity PointsPlus values, they can be swapped for food PointsPlus values.

You can use activity PointsPlus values any time during the week, or just on the day you earn them. You can also choose to use your weekly PointsPlus before you start using your activity PointsPlus values, or vice-versa. (Go to Settings/Plan Preferences in the Plan Manager to choose how you'd like to swap.)

The Tracker will automatically swap PointsPlus values for you, however you decide to use them.

Be sure to click the "Save" button each time you use the PointsPlus Tracker so that you can track your progress and view any changes that have been made.

If you have a weekly number of activity PointsPlus values you are aiming to earn each week, you can see your weekly tally after you save your items.

Your weekly activity PointsPlus values earned will reset to zero on your Weight tracking day."

You can find this information on WW web site by going to "Help," clicking on "PointsPlus ™ Tracker" and then clicking on "How do you swap activity PointsPlus values?"