If YOU see my GROOVE...send it back HOME!

In regards to my ongoing weight loss battle, I CANNOT get BACK into the groove of things. My daily lackadaisical approach shows each week when I step on the scale at Weight Watchers. In hopes of getting my groove back, I decided to try to a couple of new recipes.

Seafood Pasta Salad 

...from the Body For Life Cookbook by Bill Phillips

2 portions bow tie pasta (about 4 oz uncooked)

2 portions cooked crab meat (about 8 oz), fresh, canned or frozen, thawed, chopped 

1 carrot, peeled and chopped (I used shredded carrots.)

1 celery stalk sliced 

1 tomato, sliced

1/4  c low-fat Italian dressing

1 lemon, halved

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1. Prepare bow tie pasta according to its package directions. Rinse with cold running water; drain well.

2. While pasta is cooking, cut crab, celery, and tomato.

3. Next combine the crab meat, carrots, celery, Italian dressing, lemon juice, and black pepper in a large  mixing  bowl.  Add cooked pasta to crab mixture and toss to combine.

Check out my cool lemon squeezer thing-a-ma-bob from BIG LOTS.

4. Serve and enjoy.

Instead of low-fat Italian dressing I used Maple Grove Farms of Vermont Fat Free Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing. The book states the recipe serves 2, but after I mixed everything together I decided to split the pasta salad into 3 1/2 servings.  In addition, the book suggest that you serve the pasta on a bed of romaine salad, but I choose to skip that step. 

Enjoy your week and hopefully my groove returns this week! 

Rocky Road...And I Ain't Talking Bout the Ice Cream

Wheeeeeeew sums up last week and my return back to work. Last week started out rooooooooooocky

Monday:

6:15 AM - Cell phone alarm sounded

6:15 AM - Picked up cell and pushed snooze

6:25 AM - Alarm sounded

6:25 AM - Hit snooze

6:35 AM - Alarm sounded

6:35 AM - Hit snooze

6:45 AM - Alarm sounded, wiped sleep out of eyes, looked at time, rub eyes again, and yelled "CRAP!" after I realized the time.

Tuesday & Wednesday:

My schedule pretty much mirrored Monday's. A rumor started floating around about signing in via computer vs. last years pen and paper method. Wednesday during a staff development meeting, the management team confirmed the rumor. Uh oh...accountability time. So, for me, a sufferer of CLS (Chronically Late Syndrome), this signing in crap greatly impacts my morning and nighttime routine. Now, it is of the utmost importance that I PLAN, PLAN. PLAN! So far, NOT so good.

My rockiness flowed into my weekend as I received my WI results, +.6. I take full responsibility for my results and I rejoiced that I only gained .6. The funny thing, after the receptionist handed me back my WI booklet I continuously stared at my results as though the numbers would magically transform into a loss. C'est la vie.

So last Saturday's meeting How to Get Back on Track, served as the perfect ending to a rocky week. The leader started the meeting with the following questions:

1. "What causes us to get off track?"

For me, my off trackness (not a real word) resulted from a combination of summer vacation ending and work beginning. I struggled to find balance. Balance still eludes me, but I refuse to throw in the towel.

2. "Why do we quit when we don't get the results we want?"

For me. I quit WW a million times before (hence my blog name, repeat offender) due to slow weight loss. A million times before, I weighed in week after week only to watch others drop more weight than me. At that time, I failed to realize that weight loss differs for each and everyone of us!

Now, a million times later, I STILL feel a little frustrated when I fail to obtain the numbers I want, but now I plan to keep the following guidelines in mind:

POSSIBLE PLATEAU CAUSES FOR SLOW WEIGHT LOSS

RELAXED EFFORTS (GUILTY!) -This includes but is not limited to:

• Not tracking points
• Eating more crap (a.k.a. 100 calorie packs) rather than more filling foods (e.g. fruits and veggies).
• Inconsistently exercising.
• Not measuring foods or watching portion sizes
• Missing meetings and weigh-in

TOO MUCH WEIGHT LOSS TO FAST

• If you lose too much too quickly, you start losing muscle. AND muscle is needed to burn fat.

THE BODY'S CHANGING NEEDS

• The less you weigh, the fewer calories and/or points you need.
• WW members must remember to take the points allowance quiz after a birthday, whenever level of activity changes, after certain increments of weight loss, and/or gender change.

NEW MEDICATION

• Various medications can cause weight loss to stall.
• Example of meds causing plateaus: beta blockers, steroids, arthritis, etc.

YOUR BODY ADAPTS TO YOUR EXERCISE ROUTINE

• Switch it up!
• Introduce muscle confusion into your work out plan. In other words work out various body parts on different days.

So, the leader provided some great tips to help me, as well as the other members get back on track.

1. BOOST THE AMOUNTS OF FILLING FOODS in order to fell satisfied and full.
2. RECOMMIT TO TRACKING
3. DOUBLE CHECK PORTION SIZES
4. GET BACK INTO YOUR EXERCISE ROUTINE. Instead of rewarding weight loss, I plan to reward my self for exercising at least 5 times a week,
5. MIX UP YOUR ACTIVITY AND FOODS . Your body gets boards when you eat the same foods and complete the same exercises.

So for ME, I need to do the following:

• GO TO MEETINGS AND WI WEEKLY for accountability!
• DO NOT JUDGE MY WEIGHT LOSS PROGRESS ON ONE WEIGH-IN!
• GET IN THOSE FILLING FOODS
• JUST MOVE!!!
• DON'T GIVE UP!!

In the immortal word of Dory (Finding Nemo) , "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming (even though I'm drowning.).