Weigh-in Wednesday: I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

Send in your weigh-in result! Losermoms@Gmail.com 

Did you send it? Don't read another word until it's sent.

I'll wait.

And while I wait, I'm going to go get on that lonely looking exercise bike. 

I Get Knocked Down but I Get Up Again

First and foremost I would like to apologize for getting a Chumbawamba song stuck in your head. I assure you that was not my intent.

My intent is to let you know that if you've gained a few pounds in the last couple of weeks you are not alone. I have fallen off of my diet wagon. I went to Houston for the Mom 2.0 Summit and there I ate a shocking amount of queso and drank my daily recommended caloric intake each day.

BUT!

And there is a big butt.

I came home and while I still may be exceeding 1400 calories a day (fine I am exceeding 1800 calories a day) I am back on my elliptical. I am drinking my water. I am not giving up, and neither should you.

Fun things are in store for the Loser Moms. I think we have a giveaway coming up as well as a motivational guest post from a personal trainer.

Sometimes we take steps backwards and it is okay. I am still in better shape than I was when we started this thing.

Happy Valentine's Day!

So this is what Valentine's Day looked like at our house...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And I only ate half of those two pieces of candy that you see in the video which are half-eaten.  I'd like to think this was my way of not being half-assed about my commitment to lose some El Bees. 

 Regardless of whether you observed the holiday, weekends are unstructured which usually pose challenges regarding food choices. I tend to choose Chinese food. Le Sigh.

On a positive note, those PJ's were a Chanukkah gift from the kids and they are definitely less tight than when I first put them on in December! 


What about you? How did your weekend go?

Weigh in Wednesday: C'est La Vie (You Never Can Tell)

My weigh-in never ceases to surprise me.

This week I worked out pretty much every day. I think I may have skipped a day, it is impossible to tell because the Snopocalypse is making my days all run together. I haven't left my house in a week.

Apparently being a shut-in also makes me eat and drink more because I was up 2.5 pounds this week.

I am a little bit discouraged but even though I am back up I feel better. I look better.

My scale can suck it.

Fitting In: A Guest Post

How do you fit it in?

I've been an on and off exerciser for many years now. When I feltlike I could fit it in, I did. I would exercise for months at a time,up to three times a week. And then, work would get busy, I would have a baby, my husband's hours would pick up... whatever. And then the weather would change, the baby would start school or I would find a new gym, or pool, or something.

So how do you fit it in? How do you decide not to quit?

This time, back in September, before I started going to the first gym I could find, I thought about it. What would I do? When would I do it? What where my goals? Why do I want to do this? I thought about it for a month, maybe a little longer even. I visited more than one gym that would have been happy to have me start that day. And Ididn't sign up. Once in a while, I thought about just jumping right in, but decided not to and though a little more. How often would I go? Who would take care of the baby? What would happen when she was bigger than a baby but not in school yet?

I wanted an activity that would push me. I have tried many, many sports. I could go on and (and on and on) about each one and what about it did and did not work for me. But this time, I spent more time thinking not just about what I would enjoy this moment in time, but 6 months from now, and a year from now and three years from now.

(I decided further than that was just silly).

I started working out 4 months ago going one day a week to my gym.

And theoretically, every day (but it was really more like 3-4 additional days) I would work out at home for fifteen minutes. And sometimes that fifteen minutes took an hour due to crying babies and potty emergencies, but I would do it. And a month ago, I started to the gym twice a week. And I was thinking about upping it to three times a week but then I realized that I had stopped my fifteen minutes at home, and I should start that up again before moving to three days. Commitment and intent. But I'm hoping, that if I can keep up my fifteen minutes a day and twice a week gym commitment, I will be ready both mentally and physically to go three days a week next month. And beyond that, I can not say, but I hope a year from now, I will be going at least twice a week and spending fifteen minutes a day at home.

So the short answer, How do I fit it in? With intent.

- Natalie can also be found at Eating Local in D.C.

Changing My Mood About Food

This week we had a whole helluva lot of snow dumped in our region of the country.  Over two feet in our neihborhood, up to three feet in others. It was a mighty big storm. The night before it hit, my husband moved our barbeque grill (AKA Max*) into the garage.  I took it as his hint to me that he might be right, and I wrong, about, you know, our power going out during the storm. I said "Nah." He said "What if?" and he was urging me to purchase a generator.
Admittedly I gave him a hard time about the generator. I even invoked his childhood in rural Colorado into my argument with "Did your family have one? How often did you use it?" And his answer of "No, we didn't have one, but we could have used it if we had" didn't win me over.  No generator would be purchased on that day. I nixed the idea.

The weather gods laughed, but I couldn't hear them.

So early early Sunday morning our power went out.  I apologized to my husband when I awoke later that morning and felt the chill in the air.  Both from him and the lack of heat. I shouldn't have made fun of him about the generator. I thought he was awfulizing the situation.  I admitted I was wrong to have laughed at his suggestion that our power might go out. But in my defense, I've been in a lot of snow storms and never lost power. Rainstorms? Yes. But not snow.  I'll chalk this up to "live and learn" and we might even buy a generator when they restock the shelves.  After a day without power, I learned something surprising about how I have been stuck in a bad mood about winter food.

Winter cooking, for me,  has always translated to big pots of soup, slowcooker cooking, meat and potatoes, gooey warm cinnamon rolls. Stuff that is rich and heavy. I seem to eschew anything cold, anything resembling a salad. I turn away from tomatoes in the grocery store because I fear they will be bland and grainy.  I skip melons, I ignore berries.  But is it really necessary?  Why do I have to eat the big vats of comfort foods?  Maybe I should pay a little extra for the vine ripened tomatoes and enjoy them?  If it keeps me from packing on the pounds during winter, then maybe it would be a worthwhile investment. Every winter when I pack on the pounds I get grumpy as I make my way (weigh?!) into the Spring.

 As I stood over the hotdogs grilling for lunch (all beef, reduced fat) and later the hamburgers (90% lean) I had an epiphany.  It doesn't have to be summer in order for me to make healthier eating choices and I actually decided I had been allowing myself a "pass" on gaining weight in the winter because it is winter.  I was using winter as a justification for weight gain.

As I sat down for dinner with my family last night, I looked at the happy faces enjoying the burgers and thought they love summer too, why not bring summer into our lives all year 'round?

Here is a recipe my whole family lives on during the summer, and I'm going to make this sucker next week. It is from My Stolen Cookbook (or more commonly known as The Creme De Colorado Cookbook). All of the ingredients can be purchased in the dead of winter easily.

Grilled Sesame Chicken: 4-6 servings
Marinade:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup soy sauce
1-2 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 tablespoon dry mustard (I prefer Coleman's)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup chopped green onions
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 whole chickens quartered (or you can just use a lot of chicken breasts)

Combine marinade ingredients in a large ziplock bag. Add chicken. Squeeze out air and seal. Marinate in refridgerator for 4-8 hours.  Remove chicken, reserving marinade.  Grill over medium-hot coals or if using a gas grill, low to medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until chicken juice runs clear and it is cooked. Baste frequently with reserved marinade

Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.  Let's get some more Loser Mom recipes on the radar. Maybe more of you will join me in my mood swing!

*As far back as I can remember we have always had Weber grills in our family. My father loves his Kettle grill, we now have a gas Weber. Being the daughter of not one, but two sociologists, I cannot help but name our grill Max, after the famed sociologist Max Weber. I know, it's a sickness.

Weigh In Wednesday: It Goes to Show You Never Can Tell

I spent the weekend at my mom and dad's house with beer and Doritos.

I'm not proud of myself. I have foods that I cannot control myself around: bacon, brownies, Tootsie Rolls and Doritos. I cannot keep Doritos in my house but my mom buys them for the kids and then I eat them.

Oh, it gets worse.

Since I drove to Florida with two five year olds - 13 hours both ways - there was crappy fast food to be eaten.

Here is the interesting thing, fast food doesn't even taste good anymore. I thought I would miss it, but as it turns out some of those burgers are really, really gross.

But I ate it anyway.

T.M.I. WARNING

The silver lining to the whole fast food thing is that all that grease gave me horrible intestinal distress. While I don't recommend trying this at home (or on the road) I did lose two pound this week.

I know, the irony is killing me.

The real truth of the matter is that I think all of the exercise is finally working. My belly is decidedly less disgusting even though I haven't even lost six whole pounds yet.

Some of you people are kicking my ass in this contest, but I am still pleased with my progress so far.

Keep sending in your weights and guests post, so far this contest has been a huge success.

Love,

Sarah

ps - Clearly not my scale. I haven't weighed 124 since sixth grade and my toenails don't look that nice.

I Need a Pep Talk

Hi, sister friends. I'm trying to win this shebang this time around. I signed up for the Biggest Loser Moms contest last time too, and ended up gaining something like seven pounds over the past four months. I totally half-assed it. (Or really, I one and a half assed it, considering my weight gain.)

This time I'm taking it seriously. I need this. I need it for my self esteem and my mental health. And probably my actual health too, but whatever. I am here to KILL THIS. I don't care if I lose the prize, because my prize is a substantial start on weight loss.

But here's the thing. We're heading into the third weigh in, and after a disappointing week and a great week, we've arrived at the I-want-to-kill-myself week. Because I seem to have gained weight from last week, bringing me to just one pound under my start weight.

Normally, I'd be all, "Yep. That's sucks." And then I would go eat a batch of cookies and forget I was part of this contest. But not this time. This time I want to know: What? the? FUCK?!?!

Here's why:

* I cut out my daily morning brownie.

* I eat waaaay fewer calories than I used to.

* I have been working really hard at exercising. I'm doing the couch to 5k three times a week and I'm trying to get in a Wii Fit or EA Active Wii workout six days a week on top of that. And I'm doing it. I am actually working out once or twice a day for a total of an hour.

* I've been drinking more water.

* I've been eating vegetables.

* I've cut down on my evening snacking.

I'm doing everything right. So what am I doing so wrong?


Stimey can be found grumbling into her salad at Stimeyland.

Please Don't Call It A Cake Walk

How come I am so talented at effortlessly gaining weight but losing it takes a lot of planning on my part? I can stare down a piece of cake and almost instantaneously gain a pound. I don't have to get on the elliptical for an hour to gain that pound.  Losing that same pound?  Oh hell. It takes a month and I have to think about it constantly.

This sucks. I know I need to work past the anger and frustration. And while I know there is "no easy way" to do this, I can't help but resent that gaining this weight seemed like a piece of cake.

Or maybe a few pieces of cake. Dammit.