Jessica’s Journey with Weight Watchers

Hey Sisters!

I know it has been a long time since I have blogged, but it has just been really hard getting adjusted to this quarter’s class schedule. I haven’t stopped my journey with my weight loss though, so don’t worry. I did not attend the weigh in after my last blog because it was a gain and I had my TOM and just did not feel like going and paying $14 to find out I had gained again… a week after my 5lb loss.

Tuesday I went in and weighed in at 242 exactly. Down another 4.2lbs and had reached a loss of 40lbs!! 40.4 to be exact. I will start to acknowledge my weight loss now. 40 seems like a significant enough number. The only thing I keep thinking in the back of my head is that I have weighed this weight and even less before, the last time I tried seriously to lose weight.

The summer before my senior year of high school (graduated in ‘03) I did a pretty crazy crash diet of strictly 1,000 calories a day or less. During this time I rode 6+ miles a day on a stationary bike, did a billy banks tae bo video, and also did a couple mile walk at night at the high school track. I lost a lot of weight and got sick. I would wake up dizzy and not able to stand in the shower. It was awful.

I then became consumed with school work and my senior year and was just always stressed and anxious and was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and started seeing a counselor. This made me lose even more weight because now, instead of eating when I was stressed, for some reason I couldn’t eat when I was stressed. I constantly felt like I was going to vomit and mostly refused to eat. I started getting better and went away to my freshmen year of college (Washington state to Michigan at MSU).

Here I began to have panic attacks after first semester and got really sick. I think the lowest weight I remember getting to was 214 but I can’t be sure. I wish I had my medical records. I know I was really unhappy and didn’t eat and all but why didn’t I start from there? I wasn’t emotionally stable enough obviously but gah!!!! It frustrates me now. I even get scared that what if 40 is all I can lose? That is a lot of weight you know? two bags of cat food as my WW leader put it. What if I can’t get out of the 240’s? Sorry I am ranting

So I see you all are thinking of goals for New Years. As most of you know, my goal is to have lost 50lbs by Christmas. According to my calculations (wow that sounded like my psych stats professor) I have been losing 1.8lbs per week on average. According to this I can lose 14.4lbs by Christmas. A couple things though, I will be going home for a couple weeks during the holiday season. I have decided to eat a normal Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner, but not go crazy. Also there might not be as much exercise then (not that I have been doing much lately… I know I am disgusting… grr) because I won’t be around my gym and such. I will just take my dogs for walks on the water front trail in Washington! Okkkk…. back to the goal. I am going to make my Christmas goal to have lost 50lbs. I am going to make my New Years goal to have lost 55lbs. I have thought about making it more but I just can’t see that happening. I have also decided that if I get to a 50lb loss by New Years I will be happy and not upset that it isn’t my 55lb goal.

Well I think that is enough for everyone to read. Hope you guys have a pleasant rest of the week.

Hey guys!! Sorry I haven’t blogged for so long, but school and such have taken over. Also my best friend just moved in this weekend. She is now living in J.J.’s and my upstairs. It is kinda weird but I am really happy she is in Oregon. We are both from Washington and we have been best friends since 6th grade.

Alright so last week I didn’t even want to go to my weigh in because I knew I had gained. Well I went and took it. A two pound gain. I left my meeting. I didn’t even want to sit there. Well I came back in today with a 5.6lbs loss! That is the most I have ever lost in one week, granted I had gained 2lbs the week before. Anyway though I am really really happy and into the 240’s now. Now if my weight spikes it will probably only be around 252. I like this. I have now lost 36.2lbs and can almost taste a 40lb loss. I still am hoping to get to my 50lb loss by Christmas. I think this is doable. 13.8lbs more to go.

Alright girls I am off to do some homework. I have been reading all your blogs even though I haven’t been posting my own and I am proud of all of you.

Well it was my first day back to school today at the U of O. I am only taking 13 credits this quarter, so not too many. I just got done taking summer classes so I wasn’t really feeling like a huge load this quarter. Today I only had one class: “Alternative Methods of Treatment.” It is a SAPP class which stands for Substance Abuse Prevention Program. SAPP classes are upper-division credits which is really nice considering you need a lot of them and I transfered into my program. SAPP classes are either quarter long or short weekend seminars. I took two seminars this summer and really became interested in them. They are right along the lines of FHS (Family and Human Services) major classes.

Anyway, back to the class… I am taking two SAPP classes this quarter and couldn’t remember which one I was going to today, I just knew where it was. When I saw the professor I automatically assumed it was my Alcohol and Marijuana SAPP class because he looked like a hippy. It is Eugene after all haha. It turns out he sort of is a hippy, but it was my Alternative Methods of Treatment class. After Vietnam, he came back to the states and worked for a newspaper. He ended up quitting because they were wanting him to report things that were the opposite of what was really going on there. He moved to the hills in California, got married, made babies, rode horses everyday, grew pot, sold pot, and smoked pot. What a relaxing life He decided pot and making babies wasn’t everything though and him and his “old lady” as he referred to her hitch hiked to Oregon, stumbled upon Eugene, and he has been in love with the place ever since. I am hoping it will be a good class.

I rode my bike from my house to the bus station this morning, and then the bus to the school, and then rode my bike home after my class. All the riding, including around campus, was a little over 5 miles. Apparently this summer I was a little off in assuming that just the ride home was 4 or 5 miles. Silly me. Luckily I have my clever bike odometer now! I am still hoping to get a new bike in the next few months. R.E.I. has good deals on their bikes in December and January because they are trying to clear their old models. I have had my bike since I think like 13. It is a really nice bike, and granted I never really rode it except for when I was younger and in the past 6 months, I need a new one. It is definitely time to upgrade.

Well ladies I am going to go to the gym and try to do my 45 on the elliptical. I am feeling so unmotivated right now, but I have a weigh in tomorrow so I am gonna go! I am really hoping for a loss tomorrow but I am feeling so fat and gross right now. Hope everyone has a good evening.

Well I got to my 10% this morning at my weigh in. I got one of those key chains pictured above which I put my 16 weeks clapping hands on and also the 25lb weight symbol. I lost 2.8 this week which is good because I didn’t even lose an ounce at last week’s weigh in. I sort of feel… dare I say.. back on track.

These are the other two keychain awards that I already have:

Err well I have been trying to type this since like I don’t know 3pm or something when the Comcast guy was here (we are switching from Dish to Comcast), but I have been coming and going all day and it doesn’t look like I am going to get a much longer blog written tonight so I will talk to you all later.

Okay so I definitely have not had my perfect week. In fact it was far from it. I got my TOM early and have never really had PMS symptoms or anything like that before. My TOM are usually only 2 maybe 3 days long, but omg, I have never felt so bloated, so tired, so unmotivated, so hungry for crap in my life.

Today however, I woke up weighing two pounds less and feeling much better. I have been having a fat day all week! I felt fatter than I did 27lbs ago. I am sticking to points today. I really want to try and do it again. Otherwise I am just paying to go to meetings where I don’t even take the advice, and it is already hard for me to budget $14 a week into my college budget.

I am so happy it is officially fall. It is kind of even overcast today. I love fall. It is my favorite season. J.J. and I just went on a bike ride and boy could I tell that I haven’t really ridden my bike much lately. I was doing 4 or 5 miles everyday on the bike trail home from the University during summer classes. We did 3 miles today and my thighs and knees were pretty sore, but I love biking outside. We even kind of found a bike trail today. I also hooked up this thing to my bike that tells me how fast I am biking and my distance. It tells other things too, but not stuff I am that interested in. I don’t know how accurate it is, but it is a neat little device.

Okay so today:
Daily Points 32
Yogurt 2 30
Banana 2 28
Cereal 4 24
Milk 2 22

I know I have not had very many points for what time of day it is, maybe I will have some more cereal. I am planning on having stir fry for dinner, but that can’t use up that many points.

Oh as far as those pictures go… they are signs I made and put up in my kitchen. I am trying to follow them haha. Well ladies, hope you all have a good evening.

So I weigh in tomorrow and I am not sure what I will see. I have not really been keeping track of my points the past couple of weeks, just sort of guesstimating my points, and I still have been losing. I have been exercising the whole time, but I am sure I was a little lax in the food choices I made. Last week I was really good with my exercising, and weighed myself probably a couple times every day. My weight fluctuated to either the same weight or a few pounds up. I didn’t even know I lost 1.8lbs until my actual WW weigh in. It was weird and frustrating.

I am hoping that I will at least lose my .6lbs that I need to lose to get to my first 10% weight loss of 28lbs. I will have met my first goal! Yippee! I am also wanting to start on my “perfect week” tomorrow. I am going to follow points and at least get in 45min of cardio each day if not the 60min that I want to do on the days that I am not doing my arm/ab exercises.

I am hoping to plan a menu for the week and also thinking of getting some Slim fast shake mix or some other protein powder. Is protein important in diets? Will it help me with anything? I am also hoping to take my vitamins every day.

Well ladies I am going to hang out with my man and our puppies now. Maybe a diet snapple? It’s my new kick… mmmmmm…. does tea enhance weight loss?

Today was a very football filled day. J.J. is still watching college football and college football updates at this moment. He wants to be a sports writer and it could be said that he is just a little obsessed with sports. We always have ESPN on in our living room. But anyway, the Ducks won in double overtime! Hooray!!

Also I feel that I deserve a small bravo. I was so proud of myself today. The game started at 12:30 this afternoon so I slept in and got up to have a breakfast of “Speacial K with Berries” waffles, a tiny bit of sugar-free syrup, and a dollop of FF cool whip. Yummy. Hey I am a college student, this is my version of healthier for now. I decided to go to the gym at half time because I wanted to make sure I didn’t try to get out of it later. I watched the rest of the game at my gym doing my 45min on the elliptical as well as my arms/abs stuff.

When I got home the ducks were going into over-time!!!! I chowed on my 6 in. Subway Turkey and some baked bbq lays. My arms were shaking with nerves of the game oh and being a little sore from the workout It was a fantastic surprise to a football game that I didn’t see us winning earlier in the morning.

J.J. and I rode to Wal-mart on our bikes tonight for something to do. I am not sure how far it was, but my knees were really achy. I think from working out earlier. I would have never suggested an activity that involved being physically active before WW and my lifestyle change. We didn’t even have a reason to go; we just went to get some fresh air. We found the dogs some really cute bandanas though. Maybe I will try to get a picture of them on here. I really like how Sterling starts her posts with a picture. I kinda wanna brighten up my blog a little anyways.

My boyfriend mentioned that technically I have been losing 1.8lbs a week on average, not 1.5, soooo…. rounded up, it would be 73 weeks instead of 87 weeks, or 511 days, or about 1 year and 5 months. Okay so a year and a half longer…. sigh. I guess that isn’t so bad. Still… long time away.

Well I didn’t lose the 2.4lbs this week to get to my 10%, but I did lose 1.8. Hip hip hooray It was kind of weird though… every-time I weighed myself this week it was either the same weight as I weighed in last WW meeting or a spike of like 3lbs. I never weighed myself at the time I usually weigh in on Tuesdays, just periodically throughout the day; so maybe that was it. Sooo frustrating though. I like to weigh myself during the week to guage my progress, but obviously it does not do that haha.

I am not going to put my weight loss tracker in my posts anymore. I have put it on the side of my page; a 10% goal and my first 50 pounds which I am more than half way done with now having lost 27.4lbs. Boy I wish I could just wake up like 130lbs lighter sometimes. It doesn’t feel like it has taken me that long, but 15 weeks is a long time! I guess if I lose like 1.5lbs a week on average, it will take about 87 weeks or 609 days, or roughly 1 year 8 months. OMG that is such a long time!

I feel like it wont be possible to lose 130 more pounds. What if I can’t? I have been doing 45min on the elliptical mostly everyday at the gym, sometimes it is half an hour. I do some ab/arm exercises for right now Mon, Wed, and Fri. I am hoping to bump the 45min up to an hour on the days I don’t do other exercises. Is it possible to consistently keep losing weight? I feel lost. I don’t know rather to eat my allotted WW points which seem to be a lot, even though I have lowered them several points with my weight loss or should I do like 1,000 calories a day? I do not know if I can exercise more than I am right now, especially with school starting soon, and now I am volunteering with DHS to help find relatives or other connections for foster children. I know I have said this already, but I am feeling so lost! I guess I need some advice.

Should I be taking certain supplements or vitamins? Is there something in addition to eating healthy and staying active that I could take to improve my efforts? Sorry for all the complaining and whining, but I do feel a little better having gotten some of that out. I have been reading some new sister’s blogs and I just want to say that you guys inspire me so much.

Well I just got done at the gym. Yes… I belong to a gym as of a few weeks ago. No way would I work out at the U of O gym with all of those attractive athletes, I am way too self conscience for that. I do love my gym though! There are people of all ages and all sizes there. I mean there really are like 70 year olds working out! Even better is the fact that the men’s and women’s workout rooms are separate and the pool days rotate men and women.

I have fallen in love with the elliptical machine. I know I am surprised too. I really do not mind working out on it for a half hour, or even forty-five minutes. In fact I plan on doing an hour on the days that I am not working a little bit on my abs and arms.

One of my babies (Jack Russell Terrier) broke a nail today. I did not know what to do. There was blood everywhere and she would not let us touch it. We took her to a couple vets by our house, one where they would not even look at her and the emergency vet that wanted at least $200. I do not have this kind of money, J.J. and I are college students. We finally took her to her nail-cutter’s to see if the lady could do anything. She cut the nail down a little bit and gave us gauze and padding. When we got home we tried to distract her with animal cookies while we put gauze around her paw. She then took it off. She seems to be doing better but I don’t know, it looks bad.