And now I have finally.....

reached goal! After 99 weeks, and a loss of 164 pounds, I have finally moved on to another leg of my journey - maintenance. For the next 6 weeks I will be trying to stop losing and keep my weight the same. I will try to updat my blog shortly with my thoughts on the past few months and this long plateau I was on but I thought I would pop in and post before and after pictures for now.

Before and After

Well, the loss is now

over 150 pounds. I'm sorry I haven't posted sooner. My losses have slowed down considerably since our trip to Mexico. I am still losing regularly, just a lot more slowly.

We had a great trip in February. It was the best week we have ever had. The flights were great, the resort was 1st class and it was a great experience all around. The weight loss meant a comfortable flight, swimming without being self-concious, having the energy to spend the day out walking, climbing, playing, etc.

We went to a great park called Xcerat. We went snorkelling for the 1st time and loved it. When we got back to the resort we bought snorkels and took them out to the ocean. What a blast.

I had set a personal goal to reach my Weight Watchers goal by the long weekend in May but realized in April how unrealistic that was. Being so close to the end of my journey the road gets a lot tougher.

I keep plugging away 1/2 a pound at a time. It is getting there, though, and I will never give up.

When I reached the 150 pound milestone my dear husband bought me a lovely leather coat. I have not had one in about 25 years and I just love it.

At my last Weight Watchers meeting a few of the gals asked what brought me to my 1st meeting and I told them that I just decided that it was time. I think everyone has a different reason why they make choices to change their lives. I just decided that it was time to take control of mine. I wanted to do something for myself for my 50th birthday and this was it.

Thanks for reading, thanks for the support and good luck own your own journey.

One Year and 130 Pounds Later....

so I thought I should post an update.

What a year it has been. Who would have thought that I could become a different person. Not only do I look different because of the weight loss, but I feel like I am a different person. I am more confident, feel like I am more fun loving. I am willing to try things that I would never have considered before.

As a reward for losing this weight my husband and I are going to Mexico on Saturday. We haven't been on a winter vacation in the sunny south for 22 years. It's about time we go to a beach and relax. I would like to try snorkelling when we are there. I want to go swimming and they have aquafit classes every morning. I plan to be there.


Here are a few more things I do now that I didn't before:

I now enjoy wearing dresses and skirts because I can wear pantyhose, and actually had on a pair today that were too big.

I run up the stairs in my house.

I carry the laundry up and down 3 flight myself instead of getting my husband to do it.

I exercise 6 days a week. I still don't like it but I do it regularly.

I enjoy clothes shopping since I can now shop just about everywhere.

My next goal is to reach my Weight Watchers goal by the long weekend in May. I will post again once I am back from Mexico, where I hope to at least keep my weight the same as when I get there.

The new total is .........

125 pounds lost. Wow, it's been quite a while since I updated my blog. Last time I wrote about my daughter's journey. She is still doing very well but her losses have slowed down now that she is very close to goal.



Now that I have reached 125 I thought I would write again. The last 25 came off a lot slower than the first 100 but it has still been steady. I have been fortunate that I have not hit a plateau.



Last Christmas I wore a size 30-32 or 5X at Penningtons. A couple of weeks ago I bought a Vera Wang dress to wear at this year's Christmas party in a size 16. I have never had a designer dress before. They didn't make them in my size. I make sure I reward myself every time I reach a new goal. That dress is my reward for losing 125.



Quite a few people have been asking me lately how I do it. How I stay on the program all the time. All I can say is that I really want to lose the weight. That's what keeps me going. I don't cut corners. I don't tell myself " It's only one, it won't hurt". I stay on the Weight Watchers program every meal of every day. I have been doing this for 320 days and I know that the only way for me to reach my goal is to do it again tomorrow, the next day and the one after that until I reach my goal. And then I will keep doing it for the rest of my life to keep it off.



I again want to thank my family, co-workers, WW and the friends I've met on the 100+ and 200+ boards for their support. I can not do this without it.

Wow, it's been a while....

since I wrote my blog. It's been a busy few weeks. We had our vacation and then I had a small surgery, so I've been busy catching up at work.

I wanted to write about my daughter this time. A few of you have been following her Weight Watchers progress. She has lost 60 lbs. and is looking great. She gave me permission to add a few pictures so that you can see the past and the present.

This photo was taken a couple of years ago. She has been on the program since January and has been doing great. She tried to lose weight about 18 months ago on her own by trying a vegetarian diet but it didn't work too well since she's not a fan of veggies. She's still not a big fan of meat but enjoys chicken and fish.





Last November she had jaw surgery to correct a birth defect and had her upper pallet split. She had an apparatus in the roof of her mouth for 5 months that widened her upper jaw and put a huge gap between her teeth. Then her teeth were brought back together as the upper jaw grew together again. Now she has braces to keep everything together and to straighten her teeth. This December she is having a second surgery to bring her upper jaw forward, her lower jaw back and her chin forward. She will be on a soft diet for quite a while, right through Christmas. I keep teasing her that I am going to bring her pureed food from the nursing home I work in.



Here she is today! She looks and feels great. According to Weight Watchers she still has 14 lbs to go but I think she looks great. Mind you, I'm her mom and she has always been beautiful to me.

She has worked really hard to get to where she is today. She's a lovely young woman who has just had a great whirlwind tour of Europe. She's finished college and working while she decides whether to go back to school.

Congrats Sweetie! I love you!

The reward trip...

was awesome. Since this was my 3rd trip to Vegas you would think I would have stopped walking around in awe with my mouth open, but it was still so exciting to be there. The travel day was tiring, since it started on Sunday afternoon with a drive to Detroit. We stayed at the Crown Plaza right beside the Detroit Metro airport and had a Park 'n Fly package so we could leave our car there while we were away. It also included a shuttle to and from the airport. On Monday we were up at 4:15 and got to the airport shortly after 5:00. Our flight was at 7:00 and was probably the smoothest flight we have ever had. That was good since it was the first time my husband had agreed to fly since our anniversary trip was cancelled after September 11th. We purchased breakfast - a nice plate with fruit, cheese and crackers for me and a snack box for Mike. We landed at 8:00am in Vegas (11:00 EST) and were able to check in to our room at the MGM Grand right at the airport. Our room would not be ready until noon but we arranged to leave our bags, have them delivered to our room and catch a shuttle to the hotel, arriving on the strip shortly after 9:00am (noon EST).

The MGM is near the south end of the strip so we decided to walk up the strip to see some of the hotels that had been built since our last trip in 1998. By the time we walked to the Mirage it had taken almost 3 hours. We stopped there to pick up the tickets I had ordered for Love - the Cirque du Soleil show that was all done to Beatles music. We were going to the 7:00 show that night. We decided to take the monorail back to the MGM since our room was ready and had a nap for a couple of hours. We had a late lunch at Wolfgang Puck's - a great panini with turkey and avocado and a side salad. We did some more touring of the hotels near ours and then headed back up the strip to see the show at the Mirage. IT WAS FABULOUS!! You can't even begin to describe Cirque to someone who has not seen a show. It was loud, colourful, surprising, busy, confusing, funny, graceful and fun. The music was terrific and each act went perfectly with the song it depicted. I saw Saltimbanco last month and thought it was great. Love was 10 times better. My husband loved it and is still talking about the show.

After we got back to the MGM we walked to New York, New York and had a soft pretzel and a fat free smoothie for dinner since we just wanted something quick before bed. We finally ended the day at 11:30pm (2:30 EST) which at our age is a long 21 1/2 hour day.

In the morning we went to the breakfast buffet at the hotel. They made omelets to order and I had mine made with Egg Beaters, tomatoes, onion, green peppers and spinach. Actually, I had two. I also had tomato juice so that I knew I had gotten in my veggies for the day and had melon as well. We had Tuesday set aside to spend at the pool and sightseeing. We got to the pool around 9:30 and spent the morning there at the lazy river. We decided not to get inner tubes and we walked and swam the river 5 times that morning for exercise. It had probably been close to 20 years since I had been swimming and I had forgotten how much I loved playing in the water. We had so much fun that morning at the pool.

We spent the afternoon on the strip again, checking out the big hotels and casinos. We also saw the fountains at the Bellagio in the afternoon as they were doing a test on them. Wow, they were beautiful and the music was lovely. It was a very graceful show. We saw the lions at the MGM and the tigers at the Mirage. We had dinner at the Flamingo, skipping lunch as we had a big breakfast. The dinner buffet was great, as I stuck to shellfish and sushi, two of my favourites. The crab legs were piled 2 feet high. I also tried a crayfish, which was disappointing because you eat it like lobster, basically just the tail. Only problem is that the tail is only 1/2 inch long. Too much work for me. We walked through the flamingo garden after dinner and them took a stroll to the Paris.

We were comped there to a ride up the Eiffel Tower and since we thought it would be a nice way to end our evening, we decided to go up. How romantic, the Eiffel Tower at night! OMG! Who knew that as you got older you would acquire fears you never had before. It was the most frightening thing we have ever done. I was the last one on the elevator, which meant I was right up against the doors. The glass doors. The elevator is in the centre of the structure and as you are going up you realize you are just suspended there, the frame being quite a distance from you. I had to put my hand on the outer frame of the door as we went up because I thought I was going to fall. The elevator ride was the worst part for me but the worst part for Mike was still to come. When we got off the elevator we realized that we were just on a platform, way up in the air, with only a heavy screening between you and space. That was when Mike got nervous. Mike just stayed in one one spot with his back against the wall while I took a couple of pictures. We got on the next elevator and went back down. On the ride back I was at the back of the elevator, with my back against a railing and I felt much safer. Once we were back on the ground we looked at each other and laughed. We both just about crapped ourselves. How romantic was that! We walked back to our hotel still trying to figure out what just happened.

We got up at 4:15am on Wednesday to take a trip to the Grand Canyon. A bus picked us up at 5:55am and took us to their terminal where we got on our tour bus. We were given a continental breakfast consisting of a honey bun, orange juice and an apple. I had 1/2 the honey bun and both apples, and a banana I had brought with me. The drive to the Grand Canyon was about 5 hours. We watched a movie about the canyon before our 1st rest stop in Kingman, Arizona and then watched the Mask of Zorro until lunch. The movies really made the trip go faster. We stopped in Tusayan, Arizona, just outside the grand Canyon National Park, for a buffet lunch and then went into the park.

Wow, pictures just don't do it justice. It is bigger than you could ever imagine. All the pictures of the canyon are beautiful but you can't see the depth or breadth of it until you are there. The height was also a little scary for me because it just drops right off but the sight was worth the fear.
We stopped at two different areas of the canyon and had about 45 minutes at each stop. You can rent cabins there and you can also go down the canyon on mules but both require a reservation one year in advance. The weather was cooler at the canyon, probably about 25 or 26C where it was 40C each day in Vegas. Our driver said that that is the average daytime temp there and that it is usually breezy, which it was when we were there.

Our return trip was smooth, another 5 hours and another 2 movies, Fools Rush In and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. We arrived back at the MGM at 9:00pm and grabbed a grilled chicken sandwich and some chili for dinner at the food court.

Thursday was our last day so we spent it sightseeing, gambling (and losing) and going to a new TV show screening at the CBS screening room at the MGM. We saw a new show called the Big Bang Theory and it was quite funny. It was about a couple of science geeks who are roommates and who have no social skills when it comes to females. We had the buffet for breakfast, smoothies for lunch, and went to Wolfgang Puck's again for dinner but we were disappointed this time because we had a rude condescending server. That was too bad because it was our last meal there and that usually really sticks with you.

We picked up our bags from the bellman and caught our shuttle back to the airport at 8:30pm for our 11:00pm (2:00am EST) flight back to Detroit, arriving at 6:00am EST. This fight was also good and came in 20 minutes early. Thankfully, Mike got about 2.5 hours sleep since we still had to drive home. We got the shuttle back to the car and decided to leave for home right away, rather than eat breakfast and wait for rush hour to end. It was a good decision, the traffic was pretty light, as we were driving away from Detroit, and not to it. With a quick stop at Duty Free, we crossed the bridge to Sarnia and stopped for breakfast before arriving home at about 9:30am. We then slept until around 12:30. vacation is over. We had a great trip and would do it again in a heartbeat. Now back to real life.

The big goal......

was reached tonight. I went to weigh in and lost 3.6 lbs this week for a total of 100.2 pounds.

I started writing this post 2 weeks ago because I wanted to remember everything I wanted to say. I've thought about what set me on this journey and all that I can say is that it was time to do it. There was never any one thing that led me here. I just thought "What the #$%& am I doing? I can fix this." I have 2 sisters who are about the same size and shape as I am, both younger, and they have both had lap-band surgery. That was not an option for me, not just because of the cost, but because I don't think that it would help me to learn how to live a healthier lifestyle. Everyone has to find their own solution and I chose Weight Watchers.

I can honestly say that I have been on plan since the start. Fortunately I was not a binge eater. I rarely ate really large meals. My issue was with eating the wrong things like deep fried Dutch croquettes, cheesecake, potato chips, fast food, fried meats, salami and cheese. I never ate veggies and rarely ate fruit.

The other thing I was not doing for myself was exercising. I will be 50 years old in a few weeks and have probably not exercised or been physically active for 20 years, the same 20 years that I have been obese. In September 2005 I sustained a knee injury that reduced the minimal activity I did to next to nothing. It was all I could do to walk short distances at work. It took almost 18 months to have it diagnosed and repaired. During that time I gained an extra 40 lbs.

I started Weight Watchers January 9, 2007 and had my knee repaired on February 28, 2007. I started to add exercising around mid April as I had to wait 6 weeks before I could do any after the surgery. That was probably a bigger change in my life than the food program. I think the first time I went for a walk I went around the block. Then I added the next street. Then the next and so on until I was walking about a mile. I got an iPod, put on the tunes and that helped get my mind on something other than the walking.

Then one day when it was raining I tried a DVD someone recommended - Walk Away the Pounds (WATP). I think I made it half way through the 1 mile walk the first time. I now do the 3 mile walk every morning before work.

Here are some of the changes that have come with the loss of 100 pounds:

I can now sit in any chair without fear, even ones with arm rests.
I can wear ladies runners instead of men's because my feet are thinner.
I can wear sexy underwear, which makes me feel sexy.
I can use anything that has a 250 lb restriction, like exercise equipment, amusement park rides, tanning beds, step ladders, etc.
I fit everywhere.
I can cross my legs
I can wear seatbelts comfortably
I can wear heels
I can travel with ease
I can wear sleeveless tops and dresses
I can shop places other than Pennington's
I can drink 6 glasses of water a day and enjoy them
I can wear a bathing suit without hiding
I can wear shorter hemlines
I can wear my original 1976 wedding rings

My goal when I started was to lose 50 lbs by my 50th birthday. That gave me 36 weeks. I never would have thought that I would lose 100 lbs in 32 weeks.

I want to thank my family - My husband Mike and son Chris for their support and especially my daughter Lauren, who has accompanied me on this journey and had lost 56 lbs herself. We have teamed up and supported each other all the way. We have not missed one weigh in and stayed for all but 2 meetings in 8 months - except this week when Lauren was in Europe and missed my 100 lb loss.

I would also like to thank all the members of the Weight Watchers forum for their support and encouragement. I could not have done this without your feedback, with special thanks to the Good Morning and Good Evening crew on the 200+ board and the Healthy Hotties on the 100+ board.

I would also like to thank my co-workers who have supported me.

I would also like to say that if I can do this at my age and absolutely change my whole life, anyone can. This is not about the physical changes, it's almost all psychological. If your head is not in the right place, all the dietary changes you try to make will not work.

The next step...

was to follow the plan. Week one was surprisingly easy. I guess that was because I was determined.

The best thing to come out of that week was that my daughter decided to join me and see how it worked. That was a big step for her. She had been overweight since high school and wanted to be thinner. I think it's harder for young people because it is too easy for them to just eat what their friends are eating. I never asked her if she wanted to do it with me. I knew it had to be her desire to try it or it wouldn't work.

We both followed the plan that week and found that having a buddy in the house was working well for us. We really started to check out the nutritional value of the foods we were eating. I don't think I ever read the packaging before but it is really easy to figure out if something is good or bad for you.

The end of that week brought my first weigh in. To my amazement I lost 13 pounds that first week. I knew that it would only happen that first time but when you start with a big loss like that, it really makes you feel like you've accomplished something. It really gets you focused on continuing.

My daughter joined that week and had her weight recorded. We always add 5 pounds onto her weight loss total because we give her credit for being on the plan that first week with me. She is now at 56 pounds lost and has less than 20 pounds until goal. She looks fabulous and is obviously more confident. She also seems much happier. Oh, and she has a whole new wardrobe!

The start of my journey...

began on January 9, 2007 when I decided it was time to lose some weight. I gave myself the challenge of losing 50 pounds by my 50th birthday, which is September 24th.

I had not dieted for over 20 years so I knew that I would need support. I went on-line and saw that there was a Weight Watchers meeting starting in 15 minutes just a few blocks from my house. Decision made. I called out to hubby that I was going to a WW meeting and that I would be back later.

On my way to the meeting I was thinking that it would be great. I would not be out of place and I would not be the biggest person there as I was everywhere else. Well, I was wrong. I was still the biggest person in the room. I still felt out of place. But I was determined and I joined.

My first weigh in was not a surprise as I had weighed in at the doctor's office shortly before that. Quite a few new members there are shocked at their weight when the first join. When you are over-weight you don't tend to have a scale around. Out of sight, out of mind.

At the meeting there were several women who were reaching their goal or reaching lifetime and they had lost a total of 20 or 30 lbs. I was starting to feel even worse about myself when I realized that most people had very little weight to lose. Although I challenged myself to lose 50 pounds that was just a fairly short term goal as I knew that I had a total of over 150 lbs to lose if I really wanted to be honest.

The meeting itself went well and all newcomers are asked to stay behind to go over the plan with the leader. The leader is great by the way, and has lost about 60 lbs on the program herself. The plan is easy to follow and you can eat anything you want. There is no food plan you have to buy. You just pay to be a member and go to the meetings. The food you eat is determined by you. You just have to be accountable for it and count what you eat.

I felt better at the end the meeting than at the start and decided to give it a try. When I got home I discussed it with hubby, asked for his support, and told him it was my decision to start and it would be my decision of how long I continued, but that I was at that time determinded to go for it.

I reached my 50 pound goal 5 months early, on April 10.

It's a start!

Well, here I am creating a blog without knowing what the heck I'm doing. I hope this will be a place where I can be creative and put my thoughts into words.