I've Been 3.5 Months for the NHL to Figure this out

Celebrating the 2011 Stanley Cup

I'm a HUGE fan of hockey, I've had a season ticket hold for the Bruins for 13 years.  In fact in the last couple of years, that's where I gained the weight.  I enjoy the pre and post game at The Fours.  The Bruins played 9 straight months to win hockey's ultimate prize.  I then celebrated all summer and into the following season.  I gained back all the weight I lost before my wedding.  

Despite the way I look and feel now - I wouldn't trade any of that time.  Hockey is a HUGE part of my life.  I love watching it, I love talking about it, I just started writing about it for a local blog as well.  

On Saturday Jan 5th - we had a gathering for the holidays with the folks in my home away from home Section 307.  I saved as many points as I could for that night.  I wanted to be able to have a few drinks and eat what I wanted.  Part way through the day The Fours Facebook page posted this:

DINNER SPECIALS

APPETIZER of the DAY
Buffalo chicken rangoons
$8.95

LAND & SEA
Mini grilled filet mignon steaks and jumbo grilled shrimp served with vegetables and your choice of side.
$19.95

Do you have any idea how rare the Buffalo Chicken Rangoon is?  It's rare!  It's like a unicorn.  If you saw a unicorn would you ride it?  Of course you would you fool!  Would you ride it twice?  Of course you would! So I would!

So I ordered them - TWICE!  I ordered those fried wontons filled with bleu cheese and shredded buffalo chicken in them TWICE.  No regrets.  I woke up the next morning and started again.  I didn't beat myself up - I didn't say...I BLEW IT - EAT ALL THE CANDY!

Also something amazing happened the next morning.  The NHL lockout ended.  It's a huge challenge for me.  I enjoy cocktails and hockey talk more than the average woman enjoys manicures and pedicures.  So I need to figure out in this compressed season how to make it work.

I am planning to keep with my breakfast strategy of making a smoothie for breakfast, but I think what I think I'll do to bulk it up is to mix in some protein powder in my smoothies to help keep me full.  Also on game days I'm going to bring in carrots for all my snacks.  I'm planning to bring very large salads with chicken for lunch during the week. Also, maybe I can TRY to get up early and walk the treadmill in the office gym before work or during lunch. This should keep me low in points by the time I arrive to pre-game.  

I need to lose this weight, but I won't sacrifice my social life because it just won't work.  

Game On!

Wii Fit Lady - Why are you such a bitch?

So at home I don't have a working scale.  Part of the denial that I'm overweight I suppose.  So with this resolution (should I keep calling it that?) to lose weight I jumped on the scale hungover and bloated from the night before of drinking and feasting at East Coast Grill.

Then I remembered, my old nemisis - the Wii Fit Lady.  I hate her weird voice and more over I hate her passive aggressive comments.  She's always getting up in my business.  Why don't I see her, maybe she's fat or ugly.

Yeah 51 days, maybe it's just that I don't like you Wii Fit Lady.  Maybe the problem is YOU not me!  Did you ever think of that?

Nope, I guess the problem is me.  So that was pretty much 179.5 according to the Wii Fit to start the year.

That was Tuesday Jan 1, on Thursday Jan 3 I went for my first Weight Watchers weigh in.  180.4.  Ugh...never has the number been so high.

So, it'll be interesting to see how close these two scales are.

I've resisted exercise previously and now my built in excuse is that it's cold.  So I'm trying to commit 3 nights a week for 30 minutes to get moving on the Wii Fit.  I've been using the Free Step in order to catch up on tv - it's not the sweaty gym work out, but it's SOMETHING.  I earn a few WW activity points on it too!

So let's hope that I can keep moving.

Starting off Strong

After I posted on New Years Day, I went to my couch where I found a VERY hungover Hubs suffering from a very fun New Years Eve dinner at East Coast Grill in Cambridge.    We weighed in on the Wii Fit to get an idea of where we stood weight wise.  180 lbs.  51 pounds overweight for my height. The HEAVIEST I've ever been.  I spend the day on the couch with Hubs, searching the iPad for healthy recipes and joining Weight Watchers.

Also, rather than just watching what was on TV, we watched HBO's documentary on Obesity in America.  I seriously thought I was mere moments from death...of diabetes or heart disease or both!  But it's the first time I looked at being overweight as a medical issue as opposed to a physical appearance issue.  So I think that's where I might really stick to this thing.  I really hope to be a mom someday and it would be a shame to raise kids and not be healthy enough to take care of them.

I had planned to make a nice chicken dinner with  a salad for dinner, but it turned out all the running around lent itself to some foul smelling fowl (sorry) in the fridge and we had to make Shephard's Pie for dinner.  Not the greatest choice, but it got rid of some leftover mashed potatoes that I would have likely nibbled on and not tracked eventually and it wasn't what we normally do when something goes wrong for the dinner plan - we didn't call for pizza.

New Year's Resolution: How Cliche

On December 21, 2012 my husband and I paid off our debt.  We live with a small active credit card balance.  On December 23rd I got the most amazing Christmas gift - the opportunity to bake Christmas cookies with my nearly 3 year old nephew. It was a blast, and I had asked my husband to take pictures.

Baking with the nephew - what the hell is with the gut

Then I saw it, what I had largely ignoring for the last year.  But it was just SO out there.  Giant amounts of belly fat.  I was never a super model weight and I will never be.  Who wants that?  I'm sure plenty of women, but not me.  Truthfully - when I started to look back at some pictures I realized I had just been hiding it or hiding myself in pictures, which is hard to do - everyone has a freaking phone these days and a bad picture can be taken and uploaded to Facebook lickety split!

I have lost weight before.  I had joined Weight Watchers when I was losing weight for my wedding in 2008.  I worked hard, but I only changed my eating habits but I still lost about 25 lbs.  Everyone said I looked great, looked healthy and I took the compliments and my wedding pictures and had a piece of cake.

Me, wedding pic at my lowest weight in likely 8 years

                              

I felt crummy about it over the holidays and then I realized that paying off debt and generally getting finances under control is REALLY hard.  But at this time last year I resolved to do it.  I made a decision to not live paycheck to paycheck and put away money and get out from our debt.  I did it with a plan, why couldn't I resolve to lose weight, but more importantly live healthier?

I leave the house at 630 in the morning in order to beat traffic for an office job that I sit at a desk all day.  I leave work around 430 on a good day and hope that traffic through downtown Boston doesn't suck.  Then I get home and I'm wiped out and my husband also has a similar commute and he's wiped out.  This leads to a lot of ordering the take out, which leaves us no lunch for the following day, which leads to the drive through for lunch.  Also I'm a big sports fan, so is my husband.  So it's nights out to watch games and eating giant amounts of food and drinking all the vodka drinks.  Also I like to entertain and I like to make tons of food for my friends and family.

I love love love to go out to dinner and have a good meal as much as I like making a big dinner.  I love food. Food is delicious. When I go to a new city (mostly for hockey) I make a google map of restaurants I want to check out.

If you ever find yourself in Chicago - go to Hot Dougs

Here's the other issue: I hate exercise.  I can give you a ton of excuses about why I don't move my ass.  I have asthma.  I'm tired.  I'm uncoordinated.  I never played sports as a kid.  I'm self conscious.  I suck at all aspects of all of it.

So hopefully this is the start of some real changes, either that or this is just one post where I say I'm going to lose weight and I'm just going to cry about it.

 I'm joining Weight Watchers this week.  I weighed myself this AM and that number scared the crap out of me.  I'm about to go sit with the hubs and make a meal plan right now.

Happy New Year