Glows and Grows

One afternoon while picking up my son, I sat in my vehicle mean muggin (mean muggin a.k.a. the evil eye) another parent for halting the flow of traffic in order retrieve her small child, who somehow unbuckled his seat belt and jumped over the seat into the back of the minivan. As I watched the parent wrangle her child, my mind began to wander and SHAZAAM...an idea hit me like a thunderbolt.

Since our WW leader, Karen, constantly reminds WW members to learn from our experiences, I decided to do just that! Each Saturday after my weigh-in, I plan to evaluate my lifestyle change hits and misses. My weekly evaluation aptly titled GLOWS and GROWS, will examine strategies attempted to help me successfully reach my goal weight (this year).

GLOWS: I confess. I still inconsistently track my daily food points. In the past I tracked my points in my head and never wrote anything on paper. I refer to this lackadaisical method as Wing-It-Tracking a.k.a. Keep-It-Up-And-You-Ain't-Gonna-Lose-Weight Method. My usual pattern consisted of routine tracking starting on Saturdays, and by Wednesday or Thursday any traces of tracking became non-evident. At our last WW meeting, Karen stated several times, "Those that fail to track eat 30% more food." To help me get on the right track (get it...never mind), I received this little toy(which I picked out) for Christmas: BAM!!

So, did I track everyday using my iTouch? YES I DID...EVERYDAY! My iTouch made tracking convenient and accessible. And of course the information I entered automatically synced to the eTools online program.

I used the calculator to determine points values and create new foods to be stored as my favorites.

I even tracked my activity. And what I appreciate the most about the WW App...the price $0!

GLOW: The Couch to 5K(C25K) App.
Last summer I started the C25K training program, but I must admit I never finished the program and I never ran my first 5K. On my first go-round with C25K training, I downloaded Suz's podcast to my other older generation iPod.This time, I downloaded this bad boy (bad boy: a term used to mean anything...in this case, my new app.)

What I like about this app...I can listen to my own music rather than the music provided by the podcast creator.

Needless to say...I LOVE MY iTOUCH!

GLOW: Back Up Meals
I decided to plan one freezer meal (e.g. soup or chili) each week. The freezer meals serve as back-up for times of laziness , on-the-go moments, crazy scheduling, etc. Last week I cooked Turkey Taco Soup...

and this week I made chili. A few times I arrived home exhausted after work and popped a bowl of chili in the microwave instead of cooking or running through the drive-thru.

...added some homemade chips, chives and cheese!

GLOW: I purchased this water jug from the dollar store. I previously owned a 17 oz. cup which I refilled about 4 or 5 times a day. Well, at some point refilling the bottle became a chore, resulting in me not meeting my daily water requirements. My solution to my new lazy habit of not filling my water bottle....BUY A BIGGER WATER BOTTLE!

GROWS...Okay, so I need to work on these things.

My Mom gave me the P90X Extreme Home Fitness Program. Ummm...the word extreme fails to do the P90X justice. On day 1, Arms and Shoulders (which consisted of completing 2,431,675 push-ups), I spent a majority of my workout time face down sniffing carpet fresh. At one point I just stopped and cried! After day 2, I decided to dropkick the P90X box under the bed and move on with my life. But then my Mom gave me a pep-talk and I agreed to continue torturing myself.

On the Plyometrics DVD, one of the P90X "graduates" completed the entire workout with a prosthetic leg. I said to myself, "Self. If this dude with the prosthetic leg can rock this plyometric workout, then I need to shut it and MOVE!" Curious about torturing your self? Check out the P90X video or mosey on over to YouTube

Believe me when I say, you have NOT heard the last about this P90X!

GROW: "Fried" Chicken
This fried chicken dinner, so not a winner. For the first time I made the famous cornflake fried chicken. I think my first mistake was purchasing generic cereal rather than Kellogg's. For the most part my "fried" chicken tasted like chicken covered in cereal...gross. But we ate it...all of it!