A smart choice after all!

The last few days have been hungry days for me.  I hate these kinds of days--where you continue to be hungry no matter what or how much you eat.  But, many weight loss journeys have shown me that these are something that I just have to deal with periodically.  Today was hard--I am home alone with not only my food but also my daughter's snacks and husband's candy.  I'm also stressed and tired, and when it came to lunch all I had the energy for was to heat up a can of soup with some crackers.

In the end, I had three strawberries, a can of Progresso soup, 10 Ritz crackers, 4 cheese straws (sort of like grown-up cheetos), and a single Hershey's Bliss dark chocolate square.  I was feeling pretty bad about my lunch until I really thought about what I ate and how I chose it.  I'm making a carb-heavy dinner, which translates into high points.  So, I compared all three cans of soup in my pantry and chose the one that was the least amount of points.  I was feeling a out of control while it was heating up, and instead of binging on my daughter's snacks, I ate three strawberries (0 points!) and only half a serving of the cheese straws that I was given for Christmas, which I can usually eat by the boxful.  Then I looked up the point value of my crackers and counted out how many I could afford to eat and put the rest away.  Knowing that I would be craving dessert, I got a single chocolate square out of the freezer (1 point).  After I ate, when I realized that I was still thinking about food and was likely to go back in the kitchen, I made myself a cup of coffee with a tablespoon of creamer (1 point), which I savored long enough to kill the rest of my food cravings.

The result?  A reasonable 14 point lunch.  I get 57 points a day right now, so that is very acceptable.  If I hadn't stopped to think about what I was eating, I would have eaten the high-point soup I wanted when I went into the kitchen, all of the crackers in the Ritz short stack, at least a full serving of the cheese sticks, and probably some goldfish while I waited for the soup to cook.  The result?  Most likely a 25-point lunch.  Maybe more if I couldn't stop myself.  If the rumors about the points-to-calorie conversion are true, thinking through my lunch saved me 550 calories.  Not bad!

I also got my home gym set up yesterday (see below).  It has a treadmill and a stationary bike, and a cable hookup.  We bought a refurbished tv to put in the room that will be here next week.  My daughter's things are still in the closet (she wanted to switch rooms so we did that as well and put the gym in her old room), but we will finish that part next week.  In the meantime, the equipment is up and running.  So exciting!

"Before" Photo, Wellbutrin, and Weight Watchers

Well this is a little late, but below is my "before" photo, which was taken 1/6/14.  It's actually not the worst photo I've ever seen of myself, I think because it was taken by my husband at a downward angle since he's half a foot taller than me.  I'm thinking about taking measurements as well...but those are hard to face.  In the interests of full disclosure, this also isn't my highest weight.  The highest that I've ever seen on the scale was 385.  I lost some weight last semester when I started grad school and had to walk a lot more (around campus, to and from my car at the end of campus, etc).

In addition, I started taking Wellbutrin about 8 weeks ago, and it's definitely had some weight-loss benefits. At first it was just the anti-anxiety benefits (which are AWESOME, btw.  I know a lot of people have the opposite effect on Wellbutrin but it has made a huge difference in my anxiety), and the benefit of almost entirely solving my IBS problem (which I've had for a decade).  The quality of life improvement has already been enormous.  In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed a mild appetite suppressant effect as well, and the anti-anxiety effects have had an indirect weight loss effect as well--even when I'm hungry, I no longer get that panicky, out-of-control I must eat now feeling. Now its more like I'm hungry but eh, not a big deal if I don't eat.  As a result, I skipped a bunch of meals last week and actually lost 6 pounds in a week.  Obviously not a safe rate of loss, and it was before I started Weight Watchers again.  With Weight Watchers at my current weight I have a lot of daily points, so I have to eat all three meals.  Hopefully I will keep losing, at a more reasonable rate.  On a related note, my treadmill is being delivered tomorrow, yay!

Without further ado, the "before":

Current weight: 359 lbs