Noom Week 8

Weight Lost This Week: .8 lbs
Total Weight Lost: 9.4 lbs

A little frustrated with another less than a pound week. Frustrated because this week felt good. I felt like I was really making good choices, managing the food and even the drink, and getting plenty of activity in. I know that the scale won’t always be the exact mirror of where we are at in our heads, but I really thought I’d eek out at least another half pound this week.

One thing I’m noticing, and telling myself this morning: on days after where I get a lot of activity in, whether it be swimming or long walks or multiple activities, the scale tends to stall. The loss shows up later: a day or two. But often the scale will stall or after swimming, be slightly up. I’m wondering if my body holds water afterwards, particularly swimming where you’re in all of that chlorine. So I’m guessing I’ll probably see a drop tomorrow.

On the plus side, I’ve wiped out a year of weight gain at this point. I’m about where I was last year before I had knee surgery and spent several months in recovery and inactive. After that, it was quarantine time and I spent a good many days drinking and eating because there wasn’t much else to do.

Noom’s lessons are resonating with me at this time. There’s a lot of discussion about how you make your choices. One of the lessons that really hit home was how you look at others and their choices and follow suit. This happens to me all of the time. I’ll eat poor choices if those around me are (“well, she got eggplant parm, so I can too”), particularly if they are thinner than me (“she’s thin and can still eat that, so I can too”). Alternatively the converse happens: if everyone’s eating salads, I feel pressure to eat one too (“They’ll all think I’m a fat cow if I order pasta when they are all eating salads”). It’s an odd mind trick that I definitely engage in and it’s not good. It doesn’t give me the space to make a rational choice that’s best for me. That’s something I’m working on.

Really hoping to drop more than one pound this week. It should be doable. With no real big snow in the forecast, school should normalize and I should be able to get back into my routines of work and home and activity.

Noom Week 7

Weight Lost This Week: 0.4 lbs
Total Weight Lost: 8.6 lbs

The scale doesn’t show it this week, but this is the week where I’m feeling things shift. Where I feel like I’m actually doing this long term, getting it, committed to it. I found myself craving hummus and carrots the other day. Craving it! I’m also finding that place where if I feel hungry it isn’t an emergency. I know I can wait the hour or whatever until the next meal.

The thing that tripped me up this week was wine. It wasn’t a particularly easy week at work and I let myself indulge a few times as a result. The scale should be lower, but I’m just grateful it didn’t go up considering how much I imbibed this week. It’s a testament to how well the food choices went because it honestly is a shock the scale didn’t go up.

I do feel like I’m just sooooo close to that big ten number. It does feel like seven weeks is a long time to get to that number and I’m not even there yet. I’ll be glad when I get over that hump and beyond. There’s something about that number that really is looming large in my head.

I finally told some friends that I was on the program last night, on a birthday Zoom. I had only told two people, and I didn’t really want to put it out there in case I failed. I found out another friend in this group is also doing Noom and we started about the same time. I’ll definitely be reaching out to her. While the coach and online group are helpful, I think having a real life friend also on the program would be great support to talk to each other about.

Noom Week 6

Weight Lost This Week: 1.2 lbs
Total Weight Lost: 8.2 lbs

Slow and steady. I typed those words in and then glanced back at last week’s entry and saw the exact same ones. That’s OK. As long as the number goes down every week, I’m definitely committed to seeing this through for as long as it takes. I’ll feel good when the total weight hits 10. That will be a milestone for sure.

Noom set my first goal as 17.4 lbs lost. That represents 10% of my body weight when I started. I remember back when I did Weight Watchers forever ago they did the same thing; 10% was a big deal. It seemed like an impossible number when I started but now on my weight chart that little dot keeps inching closer and closer each time I log. It’s incentive.

The choices do seem to be getting easier. This week my husband brought home cannolis, and while I won’t say it was easy to resist them, I will say that I did so. The other side of the coin (and the thing Noom tells you to do) is that when I saw my son this week and his wife baked fresh gluten free cupcakes, I ate one. They were delicious, we were celebrating seeing each other for the first time in weeks and sometimes you have to allow yourself a treat. I did, and then the next day I had no problem ordering a delicious salad when we got take out.

I also am definitely seeing that adage that you “can’t outrun the fork”. Last week one day I did a lot of shoveling and really thought the scale would go down from all of the activity. Nope. Slow and steady. The biggest drops definitely come from a good day of food choices, not activity.

So I’m staying the course. New foods I’m liking: soft boiled eggs. I never ate them before, but I couldn’t figure out how to poach well, and I figured they are essentially the same as soft boiled. They are easy and so far I’m enjoying them. I also remembered how to make chocolate mug muffins (one egg, tbsp of cocoa powder and two packets of stevia, microwave for about 1.5 min and stop half way to stir). Those are great with plain yogurt and berries.

When the weather warms (it’s so cold these February days) I am looking forward to smoothies again. I haven’t made them since the last time I tried to lose weight but I remember really enjoying them. So something to look forward to.

Noom Week 5

Weight Lost This Week: 1.2 lbs
Total Weight Lost: 7 lbs

I feel good about this week even though it’s not the number I was hoping for. I felt a few things shift this week. I went out of the discouraged this isn’t happening faster feeling and more into the slow and steady wins the race feeling.

I am getting into the headspace that I can do this long term. That this isn’t a “diet” but a real shift in my habits that I am going to stick with. Last night, for example, we went out to dinner with some friends. I didn’t order a sugary cocktail as I would have done before. I ordered a vodka soda and actually enjoyed it. It felt good to order something that I knew wouldn’t mess with my progress. I ordered fish over a bed of spinach and it was delicious. And then had a few bites of my husband’s dessert.

I dreaded getting on the scale this morning, but the scale was down. Normally after a restaurant meal it would have gone up. But I made good choices and the scale responded.

I’m finding a few new things that I’m actually enjoying eating. I made overnight oats this week, and they are perfect for transporting to school; they taste great and are healthy. I made a pasta this week with chicken sausage and a ton of veggies, and the family actually really loved it.

I think that’s one thing about this program that I’m enjoying. Carbs are not the enemy. You just have to eat them in smaller amounts and couple them with veggies and protein. I can have a potato (baked, not fried), pasta (with veggies or tomato sauce, not cream sauce), soup (broth based) and bread (whole wheat) and none of them are “bad”. They are all OK. This is sustainable to me. I don’t want to never eat a carb. I want to be able to prepare a meal my whole family will eat.

I’ll feel better when I’m down a little more. Then I’ll really feel like I’ve got this in hand longer term. But this morning, I’m feeling good about where I am.