Bread and Water... and some BL

Another wonderful piece of weight loss advice is to be honest with yourself about your eating habits. I think one of the things that helps me out is that I am being very honest and accountable with my weight loss. I learned not too long ago that being very public with goals that might be a little hard to achieve is a great motivator. No one wants to be the person who says, I want to lose 50 pounds total by July 1 and then ends up gaining five pounds instead. I've always been told not to tell people what you are doing, because then if you fail, no one will ever know. And I lived my life like that for 27 years... not anymore! It's all about telling you guys everything :)

I also keep a food journal. I write down everything that goes in my mouth, how many points my food is, what exercise I do, etc. It helps me realize where I might have screwed up during the week. It's a fun sparkly pink mini-notebook that doesn't look like anything you would expect from a FOOD JOURNAL. The final step of being straight with yourself is weighing in. There was a study done late last year that people who weigh in every day are more responsive to weight changes. Now, I know some of us are worried about becoming addicted to the scale, worrying about daily fluctuations. I agree that this is unhealthy. But weighing in allows me to see where I am, to see if I'm still in the same range as I was yesterday, and all that jazz. If you don't weigh in daily, I really hope you weigh in once a week. I know that I fell into not weighing myself at all (hence my guessing at my starting weight) and that's a big part of how I got to be so big.

Finally, WW magazine encouarges us to drink like fishes. Unfortunately, they aren't referring to a good bottle of merlot (darn!), but water. WW magazine tells us that "drinking water throughout the day gives your body a sense of fullness, aids in digestion, and keeps your body nourished and resilient." I'll have to admit that I really wasn't a huge water drinker, especially at restaurants. There's something about some of the dive-y places that I go to (remember, I've been living in college towns for the past decade of my life!!) that creeps me out when thinking about drinking water from their faucets. And when I lived down south, it was all about the sweet tea. I couldn't imagine drinking unsweet tea.

Jumping on the water train was a bit of a struggle for me. Now, I'm drinking like a fish. I drink water with everything, and see diet soda as more of a treat or a badly needed afternoon pick me up. I started trying to drink at least six 8 oz. glasses a day. Some days I would hit that mark. Others I would only drink four. But now I'm drinking 64 oz. a day. I know that the 64 oz. mark is completely arbitrary, but at the same time, all I'm doing is peeing out the water that I don't need, right? One thing that helps me is my Nalgene container. I fill it up (32 oz.) and that's my water for my day at the office. I drink the rest when I work out and eat dinner.

So, Biggest Loser. I'm REALLY starting to hate the Blue Team, especially Dan. I was so disappointed that he had the biggest weight loss for his team, and therefore couldn't get eliminated. I did have a few great laughs yesterday, especially when Roger and Mark were fighting over who should go home... I was totally thinking, you guys must be SO happy that you got those matching tattoos :) LOL. Mark's just a sore loser, plain and simple. I couldn't believe that he was trying to reneg on what he said when Trent left, that he would leave when he couldn't lose anymore weight. I was glad to hear that he only lost five more pounds since he left the ranch, especially since he's so close to his goal weight. I think that Roger has the chance of being the Biggest Loser. And the Black Team!! I'm so proud of them. They had a great weigh in, and Maggie and Brittany are turning into some major cuties. Bernie is adorable. And I feel bad for Kelly. To me, it's obvious that Paul had an effect on her self-esteem, that she wouldn't be able to make it on her own, that she's the weakest link and that her team would vote her out or exclude her at the first chance. I'm glad they all proved her wrong. And I am SOOOO glad that Mark is gone. I hope that Dan is next. He's getting to be just as arrogant as Mark was.