4 more, more, more!

How has your week been? Have you made any changes for the good?

I've had a crazy week...but then I should be used to that by now. LOL

I've done pretty good at staying within my calorie range, except for a couple days over the weekend.  Visits with friends and a sick day will mess with your thinking when it comes to making good decisions on calorie intake, but all in all it's been good.  I've been able to drink a ton of water pretty much every day and haven't had a Mountain Dew since Sunday, I think.  Y'all know....that's like a year in Mountain-Dew-Addiction time.  Yay, me!

So I've committed to drinking four 20-ounce bottles of water per day.  For someone who likes soda so much, I find it interesting that I can't stand flavored water.  I've tried several types - from those I.C.E. flavored water, to the drops you put in your own water - and I would just rather drink plain old, cold water.  Weird, right?  At least I don't have to worry about hidden calories in flavored water, I guess!

I've learned that if I can drink a 20-ounce bottle of water by the time I get to work, then I can have a cup of coffee at work and finish the day strong with my other 3 bottles of water by the time I go home.

Side note: I tried just drinking tap water in a reusable cup instead of using all those bottles of water, but our tap water at work has been tasting wonky, and no one likes to drink nasty tasting water.  So Sam's Choice 20-ounce waters it is.

I had very seriously considered staying off the scale for several weeks before I weight myself again.  I know of several people with my amount of weight to lose who wound up being very bound by their dependency on the scale - one of my favorite podcast leaders would weigh herself in up to 5 times a day!!  I definitely don't want to switch one form of bondage for another, so I'm trying to keep things in perspective.

Having said all that, I did jump on the scale yesterday before I left work just to see where I was standing.  Mind you, this was an AFTERNOON weigh-in.  Normally I weigh in right as soon as possible after getting ready for the day, before I even eat or drink anything.  But yesterday was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.

Well, I've lost 4 lbs in a week!  (technically 8 days)

And, yes, I've done this enough times to know it's the "water weight" we've all heard of and the weeks from here on out may not have numbers that high.  I'm OK with that.  For one thing, I can't lose the fat weight till I get the bloat off...but for another, I'm more interested in my weight loss number after several weeks.

I want to look at the weekly weigh in as a scale to measure my success in creating a more active lifestyle for that week...sort of just making sure I'm steering myself in the right direction.  If I get too bogged down worrying about whether the scale is going to show another 4 lb loss or not, I won't ENJOY the daily efforts I'm putting in to change my long-term health.  Does that make sense?

Looking back, here are somethings I know I did right:
*drinking LOTS of water
*cutting WAY back on my Mountain Dews
*scaling back my late night snacking
*went to eat at Applebee's Sunday with our friends and chose a VERY HEALTHY and SOOOOO YUMMY meal that came in at under 500 calories!

And things I'd like to work on this week:
*Being more active after work
*keeping my night snacking in check

Speaking of being more active, we went biking as a family tonight - 1.23 miles.  It was only about 10 minutes, but I think nearly every one of those minutes was uphill!!  We all enjoyed it though.  I was so please that my hubby enjoyed it, too.  I had chosen a shorter route, because I didn't know if he'd be good with pushing as much as I wanted to, but he surprised me and suggested the route we took!  Yay, Hubster! Of course our son was loving every minute of it and wanted to do more.  Love it!

Before I sign off, I wanted to show you something I found that I WILL be trying soon!!

These are 911 Emergency Chocolate Cookies!  (follow the link for the recipe)  The description says the taste like corner brownies, are 102 calories per serving and since they are cookies, portion control is almost built in!  I do have my Ziploc Snack bags on hand though. ;-)  Can't wait to try it.  We all need some chocolate in our diets, right?

Let me know what worked for you this week!  (and if you try those cookies, share those too!)