Springing to weigh less

Yesterday was the first day of Spring, officially. In my neck of the woods it has felt like spring most of the month and we had an extremely warm, mild winter with little precipitation. Living here in the mountains of NEPA I really enjoyed the winter of no snow (we had some flurries and a couple inches, nothing that stuck around) as I despise the white stuff. Today it's cooler and rainy, but still, is this really March?? I remember some other March's that were still very cold and very snowy. My son was born in March in 2005 and I remember thinking, what if it snows and I go into labor?? How will I get to the hospital which was nearly an hour drive away? I ended up with a planned c-section, but still the fear was there. I do remember it wasn't this warm back then but we had no snow on the morning my husband and I drove to the hospital to check in and meet our son I'd been carrying for 37 1/2 weeks. That was 7 years ago. Another child later and here is another March, 2012, and it feels like we're in May or maybe even June. I fear a long, dry, hot summer. That will not be good for farmers or gardeners. Not that extreme rain is either as we experienced a couple years ago when tomatoes rotted because of too much rain and no sun. That was definitely a rough summer which affected our fall as well.


On March 12th I decided 7 years was much too long to be carrying around all this extra weight. I had gained from being pregnant, as most women do, and not lost anything beyond the baby and the fluid and 2 years later I had gained more when pregnant again with my daughter, though thankfully not as much the second time. You sort-of get comfortable with your new weight, or rather, you give up and figure..oh well, it is what it is, and try to be satisfied with how you look because it is extremely hard to get the weight off. I have never been happy with it and I have attempted, unsuccessfully, many times to get it off. When you see nothing changing you get disappointed and at least for me, give up...and than there is the stress eating. No matter how I, you, we, got there you have to commit to getting healthy and getting the weight off, especially if you are unhappy with what you put on. Commitment is hard. After so many different diets and changing in entirety the way I eat and not getting anywhere, adding in exercise (which I hate, by they way) and still not happy, I joined Weight Watchers. It's going well. I haven't had to change much in way of what I eat but more in how much I eat, and how many times I eat. I eat more now that I did, no really, I do. Basically on the new Points Plus program you can eat any amount of fruit and veggies you like (to a point) to satisfy your hunger needs or snacking needs, but if you want a cupcake, it's okay, you can have that too, but don't overdo it! Obviously the program would rather you eat an apple for 0 points than a cupcake for 7 points. But, look into the 100 calorie pack options out there, you can get your sweet fix for very little points.

I've found it pretty easy to stay within my daily points and not using any of my extra weekly points. I am a week and half in and I lost 5 lbs. I'm happy, but not too optimistic yet. I have found it easy in the past to lose the first 5 lbs, but than never lose anything after that and than it comes back on. We will see at my next weigh in if those 5 lbs stayed off...I don't expect it too. Okay so I'm not an optimistic person, I never have been, maybe it's my way of protecting myself, I don't know. My next goal is to get more active. That is a challenge for me..I go in spurts where I exercise everyday and do it well, than weeks of nothing..I need to change that. I have some sort of nerve damage that has not yet been discovered mainly because after one painful test I didn't want to do anything else, but I know that it's also time to investigate that further especially since I am tired of the flare ups which hinder me from wanting to get on the exercise band-wagon. I know this is a lame excuse, but when your muscle in your leg and arm twitch all the time, become sore and you have a tingly jumpy feeling in your extremities exercise is the last thing on your mind...but I do a lot of stretching during those times.

I expect while on this weight loss journey I'll have more blog postings. I gave myself from now to the end of the year to make my goal...and really it should be attainable. I'm not looking for any big loss each week, hoping for 2 lbs a week which would maybe be about 10 lbs a month...I can do this...or at least I hope I can!