Hot 100 Update #8

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Well, here is my update that I’ve put off posting all day. Why? Because I have only worked out one day this week and I showed a loss of 3.5 pounds yesterday. Something in me is having a hard time accepting this loss, because I feel like I didn’t earn it.
I have been very busy this week, like on my feet a lot most days. Some days I chatted with friends long enough to miss time to workout and others I seriously didn’t have the time to do it without getting little sleep I need my sleep, so I didn’t exercise.
I know I was trying to be careful in some ways foodwise, because of the lack of workouts, so maybe that was good. I’m just really nervous that next week I’ll maintain. However, I know that Thanksgiving is in a week, so I’m determined to stay within calories every day this week because I’ll probably go a little over on Thursday.
Another reason I’m having a hard time with the weight loss is I can hardly believe that I’m in the 180’s again. It’s been so long and I have days where I can still hardly believe that I’m still losing weight. It’s a miracle, folks. I still can’t really think beyond the current day or I get really nervous I’ll never make my goal….yet….
Here I am. I’m now half a pound away from the halfway point to my goal!!!
So, with all that jibber jabber done, on to my goals…be warned they are as colorful as the autumn leaves outside. 🙂

WEIGHT GOAL: Lose 0.5 – 1.5 lbs a week (Beginning weight 194.0). I am down another 3.5 pounds this week and it’s the high point of my week. 🙂 I looked over my weigh-ins from last month and from October 15th to now, approximately one month, I’ve lost 9.5 pounds. This is the most I’ve lost in a month in a LONG time. 🙂 I think getting my rest, bumping up the water again and being careful with calories (because I knew I wasn’t exercising) must’ve helped, because I wasn’t expecting a loss like this with so little exercise. This puts me at 7.5 pounds lost so far this challenge. I should be anywhere from 4-12 pounds lost, so I guess I’m doing fine. 🙂

ACTIVITY GOALS:Exercise four days a week, no skimping down to three during the holidays. No. I might get a second one in tomorrow, but so far I’ve only exercised one day this week. It’s been CRAZY busy and I just didn’t have or didn’t make time this week. I know I could’ve gotten a workout in earlier today, but I was in a creating mood and have been making digital scrapped stuff on the computer and then relaxing with a sick daughter all day. This WILL get back to normal next week.

Be able to jog at 4.8 mph for 25 minutes. This gives metime for slight warm up and cool down on the treadmill that has a 30-minute limit at the gym. I believe I’ll get there, and I know I’m well on the way.

FOOD GOALS: Drink at least 64 oz of water daily. Only about 4 out of 7 days. Finally got good on Wednesday and have done well since then. Journal all my eats and drinks and stay within my calorie goals daily, with the exception of one high-calorie day that I allow to throw things off a bit. No. I only journaled maybe two days this week. I did keep a decent running tally in my head daily, but that’s not good. I just didn’t take time to get things written/typed down.

EMOTIONAL GOAL: **I’ve decided to make my emotional goal the goal of visiting one new blog each week. Connecting with others on this journey is the emotional support I need at this time. No, but I re-visted a blog I’ve started following since the challenge started. This is good. 🙂

HOLIDAY GOAL: Only one or two “foo-foo” coffee drinks from Starbucks the week I am visiting my mom in November. I will stick to regular coffee and cream the rest of the weeks. I had one “foo-foo” drink this week, but it was a tall skinny vanilla latte, equaling 90 calories. I’m putting this at yellow since, yes, I had one, but no it wasn’t the high-calorie one I used to buy in years past.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound like an update full of lame excuses, it’s just what my life has been like right now.

Thanks for checking in and I wish you all a wonderful weekend. I’ll be busy getting that exercise in and preparing for out-of-town guests next week. 😀

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Throwdown Challenge … Week #2

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Hello…well, I came home from work early with a sick child so I am able to post earlier than I planned today.
**update**Barb’s Total % was lost and I know I wouldn’t want to have any more of a gain than necessary, so I updated our scorecard.**
By some miracle I am down a bunch this week and it puts me in the lead for our Throwdown Challenge.

This is a first for me, and I’m pleased. I’m also pleased that Barb is not giving up! If you’ve followed my journey for any length of time you know that not giving up is the only way I’ve made it this far in my weight loss journey.
So, I wish her the best this next week leading up to Thanksgiving. I’m keeping a little luck myself, because she said she’s competitive and now she’s more encourage than ever to do well. I wouldn’t doubt it.
Having a larger loss this week makes me think it could even out next, but who knows?!? I’ve surprised myself so far in this challenge, so I might just keep dropping the pounds. LOL
Happy Thursday everyone! 🙂
p.s. Yes, I’m a digital scrapping geek and just had to make a scorecard..I couldn’t resist. *giggle*
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Home Again

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding


Well, I had a post on here talking about how I’m home and it’s been busy, etc.

I also commented that I ate too much at dinner and it was vexing me.
I’ve just now read some blogs, and decided to come back here and delete my negative comments. So, this evening wasn’t my best eating time in a while. Oh well. It’s over and tomorrow is a new day. I’m not going to get on here and whine and cry over one evening.
I had a great trip last week. As time allows I’ll post on some things I learned from my mom in regards to eating.
Today I’m back to my normal life as mommy and wife and I’m happy to be healthy and alive. Life is all about learning and this evening I learned something…I still have some detrimental habits that I need to be on the lookout for in my weight loss journey.
Oh, and I learned something else…the green tea I was drinking at my mom’s was just as good at my house these last two evenings!! 🙂
G’nite all!
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Hot 100 … Update #7

Posted on November 12, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

The challenge is going pretty well this week, even with me being out of town. I’m writing this Thursday night because my mom has a procedure that I have to take her to tomorrow. It will be a while and I wanted to get the update done. Looking back it’s been a good week!

WEIGHT GOAL: Lose 0.5 – 1.5 lbs a week. I am down another 1.5 pounds this week, bringing my Hot 100 lbs lost to 4.0. Technically, for my goal I am right on track again. Boy, was I smart to set that at .5 – 1.5 a week. That little 0.5 a week is saving my rear.

ACTIVITY GOALS:Exercise four days a week, no skimping down to three during the holidays. I’m writing this Thursday night with plans to walk Friday morning. If that changes I’ll come back and change this portion of my post. My mom has a treadmill and I’ve been walking briskly at a good incline for a nice, hard indoor workout. It’s a little small and makes me nervous to jog on it. I jogged Monday, but don’t really want to after that.
Update Friday 9:00 am: I did get up and walk this morning!!! 🙂 So, I get to leave it green. Yea!

Be able to jog at 4.8 mph for 25 minutes. This gives metime for slight warm up and cool down on the treadmill that has a 30-minute limit at the gym. I believe getting my exercise in, even on vacation, is helping me reach this goal. 🙂

FOOD GOALS: Drink at least 64 oz of water daily. Yes. I’ve also started drinking decaf green tea with splenda and really enjoying it instead of more coffee after I’ve had my morning cup. Journal all my eats and drinks and stay within my calorie goals daily, with the exception of one high-calorie day that I allow to throw things off a bit. Yes, I’ve been using the app “Tap n Track” on my iPod touch while I’m out of town. I’ve decided I prefer journaling by hand, but this is a handy tool for travel. I’ve been at 1500 or less 6/7 days this past week. Since we’ve spent a LOT of time sitting and chatting or watching movies I know this is what helped me see a loss this week.

EMOTIONAL GOAL: **I’ve decided to make my emotional goal the goal of visiting one new blog each week. Connecting with others on this journey is the emotional support I need at this time. Yes. I actually made time to visit a new blog and catch up with my favorites once this week at least. 🙂

HOLIDAY GOAL: Only one or two “foo-foo” coffee drinks from Starbucks the week I am visiting my mom in November. I will stick to regular coffee and cream the rest of the weeks. So far the only “foo-foo” drink I’ve had is the Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte I posted about on Monday. So, this is going well. Today I splurged on a small blizzard from Dairy Queen (we don’t have them in OK), but I still haven’t splurged on a special, high-calorie coffee. Still not sounding all that great…weird. 🙂

Do you notice all that green? Do you know this is the first week it’s been all green? The only thing that could change is the exercise for tomorrow if I don’t get up early enough, but even so…not bad at all, if I do humbly say so myself.

I hope you’ve all had a nice week and I’ll be writing more later. If time allows I’ll put a little post in tomorrow with a pic of me and my awesome, breast-cancer kicking, weight-loss success of a mom. Maybe my dad too, since he’s the knight in shining armor for her that has been with her all these years. We’ll see…

Until then. Thanks for checking in and have a nice day. 🙂
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Throwdown Challenge…Week #1

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Good morning! Here we are checking on week one of our Throwdown Challenge.
Barb: -1.5 lbs this week for total percentage of weight loss of .99%
Leah: -1.5 lbs this week for a total percentage of weight loss of .78%

Barb is in the lead and good for her!!!!!

I made a score card similar to our badge, but it’s at my house in OK. So, I’ll update that on Monday and use it later.

I have to say I’m so glad Barb asked me to do this challenge. She told me that it would be in fun, but also to challenge us to be accountable to each other and get that scale going in the right direction during this big-food holiday month.

It sure did keep me in line. While I’m on vacation I kept thinking that I better be careful if I wanted to see any loss this week. I was even nervous when one morning the scale didn’t show anything positive, but it all worked out.

I’m visiting my mom, who is also working on losing weight, so that has been a big help. I’m going to post on that later, but I have to say had she not been worrying about it I might have been sharing a different story this morning.

Speaking of mom…she’s making breakfast, so I need to get. Have a great day ladies! Great job, Barb! I will be back tomorrow with my Hot 100 update.

Updated Note: We are using the calculator on Fit Watch to confirm our % weight lost.

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Time For the Foo-Foo Drink

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Good morning from somewhere outside of Oklahoma. 🙂 I’m visiting my parents this week and things are going well.

First off, I said I wouldn’t have a “foo-foo” coffee drink at Starbucks except on this visit. Well, on Saturday my best friend picked me up at the airport and we spent most the day together before going to my parent’s house. On the way to drive to my parent’s we stopped at Starbucks for a coffe. Guess what I ordered?

Not the non-fat, no-whip, white chocolate mocha I had been planning on.

I ordered a skinny cinnamon dolce latte. I think “skinny” means non-fat milk and sugar-free syrup. It needed a little help, so I added some sweet-n-low to it and a couple teaspoons of half-n-half (which is what I drink in my coffee normally). Then it was perfect.

I just couldn’t bring myself to drink something that was 300+ calories a cup, even with non-fat milk and no whip cream. Not yet anyway.

When I got home and looked up the calorie difference this is what I found on Starbucks.com:
Grande Non-fat, No-whip White Mocha: 350 calories
Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte: 130 calories + about 20 calories for the half-n-half= 150 calories. Like I said, I enjoyed my drink very much when I was drinking it, but I enjoyed it even more when I got hom and realized I saved myself 200 calories. 🙂

Now, I’m not saying I won’t still have that high-calorie foo-foo drink I was waiting for, but I just wasn’t ready yet to spend my calories on it so early in the trip. This is a weird feeling for me, but it was like I just didn’t need that and even more so when I knew how much it was going to “cost” me. I’m interested to see if I’ll feel like having it at all this week. I’ll keep you posted. 🙂

Meanwhile, have a good week and I’ll be checking in once in a while with you. For sure on Thursday, because that will the first official weigh-in for the Throwdown Challenge between Barb and I. 🙂

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Hot 100 Update #6

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Since I’ve started my challenge for the month of November Fridays will now be solely devoted to my Hot 100 Challenge updates.

WEIGHT GOAL: Lose 0.5 – 1.5 lbs a week. I was down this week, back to 191.5. For six weeks I should be down at least 3.0 pounds, so now I’m behind. Since I did see a loss this week I couldn’t put this all in red, just yellow, because I need to get back on track. But, OF COURSE I WILL, because I have to beat Barb this month in total % body weight. 🙂

ACTIVITY GOALS:
  • Exercise four days a week, no skimping down to three during the holidays. Yes.
  • Be able to jog at 4.8 mph for 25 minutes. This gives metime for slight warm up and cool down on the treadmill that has a 30-minute limit at the gym. Yes. I had another NSV Wednesday when I jogged two miles in 25 minutes. Woo Hoo! This is big for me. I did intervals between 4.8 mph and 5.0 mph. for about 20-23 minutes. I think I dropped to 4.7 at the end.

FOOD GOALS:

  • Drink at least 64 oz of water daily. I think this was about 5/7 days, but I can’t remember.
  • Journal all my eats and drinks and stay within my calorie goals daily, with the exception of one high-calorie day that I allow to throw things off a bit. Yes, I journaled, but no I didn’t stay within calories every day. To lose about 1.5 pounds a week my current calorie level is set at something like 1490 now. I’m determined to make it six days a week. I gotta….gotta beat Barb… LOL
EMOTIONAL GOAL: **I’ve decided to make my emotional goal the goal of visiting one new blog each week. Connecting with others on this journey is the emotional support I need at this time. I don’t have time to visit blogs and focus on the Beck book, so I’m switching it up for the challenge. Yes. I’ve also accepted the challenge with Barb and this is big for me. I used to be afraid of challenges because I failed at them in the past. I’m excited now and already today the little voice in my head reminded me, “No sweets, because you’ve got to keep those calories down..it worked. 🙂

HOLIDAY GOAL: Only one or two “foo-foo” coffee drinks from Starbucks the week I am visiting my mom in November. I will stick to regular coffee and cream the rest of the weeks. Done.I have to say…lately a white chocolate mocha is not even sounding good because I know a Grande, non-fat, white chocolate mocha is 340 calories and that’s about the size of a good meal for me. Is it really worth it? We’ll see. .. I’m surprising myself with those thoughts that I may not even want one. I’m thinking I may have one, but I’m not sure now. An Americano with some cinnamon sprinkled on top sounds just fine too. 🙂 I’ll let you know.

Tomorrow I leave to go out of town for a week. I will be visiting my mom and I will have time to check in while I’m there. I’ll see if I can talk her into letting me take a picture of her in her “pirate” outfit. She’s finally lost most of her hair from the chemotherapy and so I found this card that said, “If people ask why you’re wearing a scarf tell them you’re a pirate!” LOL

Have a great weekend everyone and, as I often say, thank you for sticking with me so long in this journey. It means a lot!

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Weigh-In … New Day & New Challenge

Posted on November 4, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Today’s Weight: 191.5

Loss/Gain: -1.5
Total Loss So Far: -39.5 lbs
Today I am starting a new challenge. A few days ago Barb asked if I’d like to be her partner in the Throwdown Challenge. We will be working against each other this month to see who can lose the highest percentage of body weight.
So, we decided to make Thursdays our official weigh-in day and we will end it on Thursday, December 2nd.
I was nervous about accepting her challenge because I have week-long trip coming up and Thanksgiving this month, but then I decided it would be fun. Plus, it might be just what I need to stay focused through these events.
My goal for this challenge is…
To lose more weight than Barb, at least more body percentage of weight. 🙂
I will do this by strictly adhering to my Hot 100 goals AND I’m adding something I’ve been thinking about for a while now…designated dessert days. I will only have sweets/desserts on (1) my week out of town, in moderation and (2) Thanksgiving Day and possibly Friday. The only exception will be if my daughter bakes something I might try a bite to make sure it came out okay, but I will jot it down in my calories for sure if I do this.
Wish me luck. We are doing this in fun and to keep each other accountable. You can read more about it on her blog by clicking here.
Update:
Barb’s beginning weight: 169.0
Leah’s beginning weight: 191.5
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Good Thing I Asked and NSV

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Two things to share today…

First off, this evening my daughter and I stopped in for a warm drink at the Starbucks in our local Target store. I almost got a hot chocolate and figured it would be my dessert for today, but then I decided to ask how they make it.

I assumed it would be with milk and a shot of syrup added. Nope.
I was told the base was the white chocolate mix, not regular milk (which I could’ve asked for non-fat). ah ha! Good thing I asked…because that qualifies it as a “foo-foo” drink and would’ve ruined the one thing I’ve been able to do consistently on my Hot 100 challenge.
Of course, now as I write I’m thinking that anything outside of coffee would’ve gone against my challenge, correct? Oh well..I’m glad I settled for a decaf Americano and added my regular sweetener and cream. It was about 50 calories versus 200+ calories. I greatly enjoyed it and didn’t have to feel guilty for not complying with my challenge goals. 🙂
Secondly, I had a HUGE non-scale victory today during my workout using Jillian Michael’s 30-Day Shred. For the first time ever I was able to do the jumping jacks and the “jump rope” move back to back. This is during a 2-minute interval of cardio wherein you do 30-seconds of each in two sets, and I’ve never been able to do the “jump rope” move (jumping in place basically) directly after doing jumping jacks.
Today it was still so hard, but I DID IT! My thighs were killing me afterwards.
I told my friend that I will not move on to Level 2 until I can do this one portion of the cardio consistently. Looks like I’m getting closer and closer to achieving this. Woo Hoo!
Alright, I have to get to bed now. My eyes are droopy and my back is tired. I’ve been working on a school yearbook all evening and it’s wiping me out.
I hope you’re all off to a pleasant fall week. Mine is off to a good start. G’nite!
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No Time for #4

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Leah@MyNewEnding

Okay, I have to be honest and come on quickly to say that I have not had time to get that 4th workout in today.

I forgot that we had a parade to go to this morning, in which my son walked. Then we had birthdays to shop for as I will be busy this next week getting ready to go out of town. Then it was home for lunch and house cleaning and making some snacks for this evening.
This evening I am going back over to our church for a Halloween-like function and it will keep me up at least to midnight, so there will be no fitting in a workout before bed.
*sigh* This week was very busy, again much more busy than earlier in the school year and summertime. So, while I’m proud that I got three very good workouts in this week, I’m sorry to say I did not completely meet my goal of 4 for the Hot 100 challenge.
Hopefully next week…
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