Wednesday Weigh In

I lost a pound and 1/2! That brings my total to six and 1/2 pounds! I'm now at 176 lbs. This week was the hardest week for me yet. I was getting over a sinus infection that I needed antibiotics for. I didn't feel up to cooking anything intricate so I tried to just be careful of my caloric intake. Usually Slimfast would have me cooking for about an hour or more at dinner time. I didn't feel like thinking too much so I didn't follow the plan. One night we had a stirfry that used frozen veggies and a pre-made sauce in a packet. I thought it would still be good since it's veggies. We also had brown rice with it. I noticed the next morning that I still had gained an extra pound of weight. The stirfry had a lot of sodium. My theory is that whenever I eat foods that are high in sodium, my body just packs on the water. I think this is why when I am pregnant I gain so much weight. Especially with my last pregnancy I was carrying excess amniotic fluid and just a week after giving birth I had lost 25 lbs. Dallin was only 6 lbs, 2oz so a good majority of the weight was excess fluid. Even the placenta and amniotic fluid would not weigh 18 lbs. I do plan on getting pregnant sometime in the future- just not for a little while. I even had another dream a week ago about the next daughter I will have. It reinforced the fact that now is not the time for her to come. But she will come. I have another daughter after her that will come as well. For me and my family, it is important to know this. I don't exactly know why God has decided that I should know my kids so well before they are born, but for some reason I do. I think everyone can feel their presence them if they ask God and really seek to have this experience. It is really about God revealing to you your personal best family situation. For some families this is one child and others it is many. Still for others they may not have children in this life. I enjoy spacing out my kids so that they get sufficient time to themselves with me. Also, my kids don't sleep well at night until about age two so I get very tired easily. Dallin is actually sleeping well now so I don't have anymore problems with him. He is 21 months now. Okay, enough about kids, and right now I really wish I knew HTML so that I could create another paragraph. I should just look it up on the internet. But I need to take the kids outside to play so I don't have time to look it up now. Back to weight loss- I need to loose weight before I get pregnant again. I have not been following the slimfast plan directly now since I know the basics of how to eat healthy for my height/bodytype. Meals are about 300-400 calories and snacks are about 100 calories three times a day. It's better to eat the majority of those calories in veggies and fruits with just 1/4 of it in starches and 1/4 of it in protein during meals. I have to watch portion sizes and sodium content. In order to control hunger I have found that having three scheduled snacks a day helps. If I am still hungry after eating everything for that meal or snack, I try to judge if I'm thirsty, anxious or tired. Then I'll add maybe a little food if I'm truely needing more. I noticed that on the days that I'm most hungry, I'm probably loosing the most weight if I don't add more food. The next day after feeling unusually hungry, I loose a pound. If I do more work or exercise than usual, I seem to be able to eat just a little more calories and still lose the weight. Knowing that I have to report on my weight loss makes me motivated to keep eating healthier. This is working for me!! I'm so excited! One major milestone I want to hit is having someone that doesn't know I'm trying to lose weight, say "Julie- have you lost some weight?" I will have to post something about that person and tell you how I know them. For some reason I think it will be someone from church since I see them only once a week yet they know how big I was before. I wonder who it will be!!