I decided that since I was on Week 3 (My, how time flies!) I would list the changes I've noticed so far to further motivate myself to continue.

These are my NSVs (Non-Scale Victories) As I think it is important to measure your weight loss in more ways than just the number on the scale:


1. I feel lighter and more energetic.

2. I don't shake as much as I used to since I've cut out pop. My hands are still very unsteady, but not as bad as they used to be.

3. I am more aware of what I'm eating and what it tastes like. I can't believe I've eaten any the crap I ate before. Most of it didn't even taste good..

4. My skin has cleared up significantly. While my acne isn't gone, it has gotten so much better. Plus my skin is more glowy

5. I crave salads and fruit now as opposed to icecream, chocolate, pasta, and doughnuts!

6. I no longer eat out of boredom.

7. I no longer eat until I'm so stuffed that I get sick.

8. I suffer less from constipation (yea, I know, gross. I've had this problem pretty much my whole life - really sucks.)

9. I feel more confident.

10. I've grown to actually enjoy the taste of water and salad. Who would have ever thought that was possible?

11. I've helped my mom lose 20lbs


It's only been 2.5 weeks, but I already feel so much better. I can't wait to see how I continue to improve. And here are little tips I've learned as I've progressed through my journey that have helped me.. (can you tell I'm a fan of writing lists? lol)

1. If I set out my tennis shoes and socks at night where I can find them, I'm more inclined to put them on and go outside in the morning. (I'm always losing my shoes!)

2. If I put my shoes on immediately in the morning, I'm definitely more inclined to go outside and exercise!

3. It definitely helps to have family support to lose weight, but it isn't impossible if you don't. Support is always available elsewhere.

4. Having fun is vital to success (at least for me)

5. Eating smaller meals more often works best for me. I used to skip breakfast and lunch, have a ginormous dinner and then snack, snack, snack all night until I went to bed.

6. Writing down everything is probably the best thing I could have done.


That is it for now. I'm off to go work on my room. My mission today: Get everything under my bed cleaned out and work on my "fitness" collage. (Lists and collages are my thing, they soothe me lol)

If you don't hear from me within 48 hours, I've been sucked into the black hole under my bed. o.O

You are way too cute and your journal is extremely interesting for some reason. Anyway, i'm sorry you don't seem to be getting much support at home but i'm glad it's looking up now .

Coca-Cola is to you as bread/pasta is to me. It's horrible habit...

Best of luck dear.

I really like your list of NSV's.

Awww, thank you, that's very sweet of you to say!

I know how the pasta thing is, I loooooove it. I would struggle with it too if I wasn't so lazy and didn't want to cook it. Hehe.

Mmm yes, the support system here isn't the greatest. I still have hope that they'll come around... eventually...



I bet I like them more than you

What I ate:

Breakfast - 1/3 of large steak (not quite size of fist), vitamin, glass of diet caffeine-free Twist Up
Snack - 1 Large Banana, water
Lunch - 1 Grilled Cheese Sandwich (2 slices Whole Wheat bread, 1 slice American cheese, little butter) water
Snack - Water
Dinner - 1 Grilled Cheese Sandwich, half an apple (I dropped the other half on the floor! Gah!), water
"Dessert" - 2 poached eggs, water

Exercise:

- A measley 20 minutes of DDR

Another rather average day. I see that I'm going have to start putting extra effort in to get exercising in. When I started this I though diet would be the hardest part, but now I see that it's actually exercise, haha. It's funny though because I have the time and I know it makes me feel great and yet I find it harder and harder to get myself to do it. Perhaps it is boredom. I'll have to spice things up a little bit.

I'm trying... just not trying hard enough

What I ate:

Breakfast - 1 small bowl of Lucky Charms, vitamin, 1 whole bottle of water (whoohoo)
Snack - Half an orange, 1 slice of whole wheat bread with butter, water
Lunch - 1 large piece of meatless Lasagna, water
Snack - Nothing
Dinner - 1 thingy of microwavable Easy Mac, water
Dessert - Nothing

Hahaha, not so good. I was fairly shocked when I went to write all of this in my diary. I thought I ate way more than that! Feels like it. My water intake was great today, but nothing else really was. Mostly carbs today!

Exercise I did:

- 20 minutes of DDR
- 2 games of badminton + practice beforehand
- Laundry (involves going up and down the basement stairs a good half dozen times with baskets of clothes)

Parents leave tomorrow morning. I have $9 I plan to buy some produce with tomorrow and bottled water. Won't get much, but enough to last until next paycheck.

DDR is an excellent way to excersize... but unfortunately for me they took the DDR machine out of our local mall... /grumble

Keep up the awesome work!!

Casey

PS: Grats on your NSVs!

That it is!

I've never actually played the arcade version on the hard mats. I've heard it's a lot better though. I've got one of those crummy soft mats that slide around everywhere.

Posting a little early today because I'm excited

As you all know, my mom and the thing she's married to left this morning at 5am (if you didn't know, you do now!) and as soon as the bank opened I went and withdrew $60 and went food shopping! And HERE is what I got:

- 100% whole wheat bread
- Yokeless Egg Noodles
- 2 bundles of grapes
- 1 bundle of romaine lettuce
- Baby carrots
- Bananas
- Blackberries
- Granny Smith Apples
- Vanilla Wafers (Couldn't resist their simple goodness)
- Big ole thing of water
- Itty bitty Pizza Crust for a snack
- Pepperonis and Pizza Sauce
- Whole Milk (I know I know)
- Frosted Mini Wheats
- Apples and Cinnomon oatmeal
- 2 cans of low sodium tuna fish in water (For Tuna noodles, of course)
- 2 premade salads from the Deli
- Half gallon of 1% Chocolate Milk (I debated if I should get it, started walking right past it, then turned around and went back to get a little one. At least it was only a little one, right?.... right?)
- Potting Soil and Pot (Not for me to eat, obviously. For my tree I planted on earth day that I'm desperately trying to keep it alive. My thumb is so anti-green, it's practically red.)


THERE HAS NEVER BEEN THIS MUCH HEALTHY STUFF IN THIS HOUSEHOLD AT ONE TIME, EVER! *Jumps up and down in excitement* Sure there are a few... not so good things. But my sister would kill me if all I got was grapes and lettuce, haha. Though I'm sure she's going to kill me anyway when she finds out I spent her cigarette money on potting soil and fruit...

But anywho! I've been really REALLY craving Coca-cola lately. It's almost frightening how much so. AND they had it on sale today! But I just walked right past it to the next isle where the water was. Very proud of myself. Bingo night is coming up which will be the true coca-cola test.. we'll see how that goes. I know I don't need it, but MAN DO I WANT IT! I can practically taste the deliciousness of it right now... *sigh*

The carrots I got are my "mystery" veggie. I've never had them. The only vegetables I've ever tasted in my life are: Potatoes, Peas, Corn, Lettuce, and celery. And I just had celery for the first time about 2 months ago when I bought it on a whim because I was curious about what it tasted like.

Lol it was sort of funny and sad at the same time because I didn't know how you went about eating celery. I didn't know if there were parts you couldn't eat, or if you had to cook it first, or anything. I asked my friend and she just laughed at me! Gah! I figured it out though, so no worries. I'm totally TOTALLY new to vegetables. My plan of attack is to get 1 or 2 new veggies each time I go food shopping, figure out how to cook/eat them, and decide if I like them or not. Lol. Any advice on what I should get next time? I'm thinking I might try broccoli.. that seems like a healthy choice.

Moving on to my food and exercise log.. I was out of healthy choices today for the most part so here is what I ate:

Breakfast - Vitamin, Grilled Cheese on Whole Wheat bread
Snack - 10 pepperonis, Water
Lunch - 5 pepperonis, 2 serving of Tuna Noodles (I measured out the pasta this time) Lots of water
Snack - Glass of Chocolate Milk
Dinner - Just about to eat it. I'm thinking salad will be nice. With baked chicken breast, romaine lettuce, and parm. cheese. May have grapes with it.
Dessert - Perhaps more grapes, if I'm hungry.

Exercise:

-30 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution on Difficult I really challenged myself today by not resting between songs.. never been so out of breath! lol (Plotting to do about 10 more songs before bed)
- Pushing cart around walmart, walking from one end of store to the other. Parked car as far away as I could, returned cart to the front of the store.
- Hauled groceries into house (involves going up and down steps a gazillion times)

So technically DDR was the only "Exercise" I got today, but I thought I would list the other stuff too so I didn't look so lazy. Lol

I'm off to get a refill on this chocolate milk (water isn't cold yet) and get a salad. Hope everyone is having a fantastic day!

Wow. Just wow. So many questions...

Half a gallon is "just a little one"? Really?
If you get a single quart, and mix it with a quart of white 1%, you get a half gallon that tastes like chocolate milk but it a lot better for you.

Glad you have better food in your house now.

Good job resisting the cola. It gets easier over time, and if you wait long enough the stuff will likely taste foul like it did for me. Take water to bingo night.

Carrots a mystery vegetable? You have only ever eaten five different kinds of vegetable? The mind boggles. I can't even imagine it. Where and how did you grow up that you didn't eat basic vegtables? Carrots are pretty much ubiquitous, I thought.

You have a whole world of culinary joy in front of you, kiddo. Go out and buy as many different kinds of vegetable as you can find. Research how best to eat them and try them out.
Broccoli is an excellent choice. Best eaten raw or lightly steamed (just until it turns bright green). My 5-year old daughter _loves_ broccoli.

What can I say? I grew up in a household that despises vegetables and loooovess meat. I was too chicken to try veggies at school or anything. I just assumed I wouldn't like them. I'm getting over that now, of course. I have lots to learn and try

And now you know why every member in my family is obese, diabetic, and goodness knows what else. I don't plan to follow their footsteps. I'd like to live a nice long, healthy life, thank you very much.

Hmm.. today wasn't a good day.

It's not that I didn't eat right, or that I didn't exercise, it's just that my mood was "blah"

I probably had a total of 3 hours of sleep last night because my lovely sister decided to bring a bunch of strangers to the house (without permission, of course) and have a kareoke party in the living room. (My room is parellel to the living room) I was very tempted to go on a shooting rampage, but decided the jail time wasn't worth it.

As a result, I'm sleep deprived and cranky. I didn't really have any "meals" today. I've just been snacking. Mostly healthy things, but I couldn't tell you how much I ate or when I ate it.

Basically I ate grapes, vanilla wafers, and bananas. Nothing else that I can recall... oh wait I had pepperonis at one point too.

Not exactly balanced, and definitely not enough calories.

Eh. I post again when I'm in a better mood. I'm going to bed in a few hours so it may not be until tomorrow.

Woo-hoo!

Well Thursdays are definitely going to have to start being my cheat days. Apparantly I can't bring my own food to the bingo hall, which really sucks. Especially since I'm there for 6+ hours.

The good news is that I totally resisted having a coke! Whoohoo! I drank water the entire time, I was very happy with myself.

The bad news is I ate a ton before I left and ate a ton when I got there, and not of the best things. And NO exercise at all. Ick.

What I ate:

Breakfast - Bowl of Frosted Flakes with whole milk, vitamin, water
Snack - Cup of blackberries, water
Snack #2 - 3 full handfuls of shredded cheese, several pepperonis
Lunch - Pepperoni Pizza My own personal one, that was probably twice the size of what I should of had, eek. I made it myself using premade crust. Water.
Snack - A ton of grapes, a ton of them. I was munching on them mindlessly while on the computer. Good thing it wasn't something worse..
Snack #2 - A kitkat bar, water
Dinner - a hotdog with bun, plain. Water


If you haven't noticed, I have yet to touch the carrots or broccoli I purchased They kind of scare me, which is silly. I'll have to suck it up today and try at least one of the two.. I'm thinking the carrots, they look less menacing.. Hey, maybe I'll go crazy and eat both and then throw some salad and peas in there somewhere. It will be an all-out vegetable party! Haha
So far today I've had a one packet of cinnomon + apples oatmeal that I didn't quite finish. Also, I believe the box said something about reduced sugar, I'll have to check again. I'm going to eat more to get a bigger breakfast in. See if that curbs my cravings later on. I could eat a whole pizza by myself right now I just have to put my foot down.

Oooh, I get to try out my new exercise DVD today! I got the Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds Power Mile DVD. I'm going to use that when I dont feel like going outside or when the weather is crummy, combined with DDR. I don't know how easy or how hard it will be, but we'll find out. If it's too easy, I can always do the DVD twice!