60 pounds, Thanksgiving, and Rowdy Boys

I did it ya’ll! I hit my 60 pounds lost, finally! I can’t tell you all how surprised/relieved/excited I was/still am. It’s really amazing that in just one year and two weeks I managed to lose 60 lbs! I’m less than 30 lbs from WW desired weight, and 13 from my own desired weight. I’m now 193.6 and feeling amazing! I never even believed it was possible to be this low, and never dreamt last year that I would even stick with WW, but look who’s talking now.
I also think I may have had another weight shift, if those even exist. When I first started on this journey, my best friend Brittany, who’s lost over 100 lbs, told me about all the different things to expect. She said there’s going to be times where you’ve experienced a great loss in lbs, and not see a damn bit of difference. And then all of a sudden it’s like your body realizes and sucks itself in and you wake up one morning and its like you’ve changed over night. This has happened a handful of times to me and I gotta tell ya, it’s awesome! Especially when you’re in the beginning stages and really feeling down about not seeing a difference.
My overnight change happened when I woke up Saturday. I was getting ready to go to the grocery store and I grabbed a button up flannel I have that I’ve never ever ever been able to have come close to buttoning up. I was going to wear it over a tank top like I usually do. And it’s like it just was all of a sudden tailored to me and buttoned up with no issue whatsoever. And then I noticed that my whole body had kind of sucked in. Everywhere. It’s always hard to believe when these little shifts happen because they’re almost like an illusion. But when clothes are fitting you easier there is no illusion. When I got home from the store I was feeling a little froggy and decided to try on my bikini. I bought this little polka dotted fifties style bikini when I had lost about 30 lbs, it was a few months to summer and I figured by then it would look good.
It did not. The bottoms come up over your belly button, so you’d think that would be good for some extra suckage, but all that did was cut in at my waist even tighter an my stomach was still hanging over the top.
Then there’s the top of the suit. It my girls were hanging out left and right, bottom, and top. Terrible. I wore it once or twice when summer came, but it was extremely nerve wracking to move around in because I was afraid that any moment my girls were gonna make an appearance. Every move I made was awkward and uncomfortable.
I stuck to a one piece that Brittany had lent me for the majority of the summer and was fine with that.
But Saturday I wanted to see now what it would look like. I nervously reached into my closet for my box of summer items. I sifted though shorts, cover ups, and other miscellaneous summer doodads, and began to see the polka dots peering out at me. It was like ripping off a band aid. I just changed as quickly as possible and looked in the mirror. And holy smokes. HOLY SMOKES. Literally, smoke was radiating off my ridiculously hot bod.
Sike. I’m not that cocky or confident. But my body in that suit has done a 180 since summer. My stomach was flat above the top instead of hanging over, my two now-little friends were covered, and the suit was just gently resting on my waist in stead of cutting into me.
I took about 100 pictures and just laid in my bed admiring them all like a weirdo. I finally realized I was being super creepy and changed once again.
I felt awesome for the rest of the day, and even still today.
The point is that even if you’re not SEEING the fruits of your labor it doesn’t mean they’re not on their way. Your body really does need time to adjust to your weight loss. It’s a bit of a slow poke and if you have the patience it’ll show you what a great job you’re doing. I think that’s one of the biggest reasons people fail on “diets” is because they’re not seeing results fast enough. If only it were a requirement for everyone to join weight watchers. Can you picture how much more room there’d be in the world? I kid, I kid. But really….

In thanksgiving news: Saturdays grocery adventure was for thanksgiving items, among regular stuff. I picked up all kinds if goodies. Here is my menu, it’s pretty traditional as far as thanksgivings go around here.

A 15 lb turkey
An 18$ ham, however many lbs it is
Stuffing (which is the only item on my menu that I just couldn’t skimp on nutritional value. I have only ever made boxed kind, and this will be somewhat more homemade but ill use as many nonfat/light ingredients as possible)
Cranberry sauce. But instead of jellies I bought the whole berry. Nutritional value is identical here, but the whole berry at least provide some fiber.
Green bean casserole. I bought no salt added French cut green beans, fat free cream of mushroom soup, and I will be making my own crunchy onion topping. This dish is pretty okay in it’s regular style BUT the crunchy onions on top are what get you. And I used to use the whole can of fried onions! So this year I set out for a recipe to make my own without frying and I hope it works out.
Fauxtatoes. This one is going to be interesting. It involves cauliflower and cannelloni beans. Ill let you know how it works, but from pictures I’ve seen you can’t tell the difference in looks. Hopefully gravy can cover up any kind of doubts people may have. Gravy works miracles.
I did buy regular ol’gravy, but I just won’t be using as much. Maybe ill get feisty and look up a healthier version. Who knows!
Then there will be no salt added corn.
Sweet potato casserole. This is going to be interesting. This is my fathers favorite dish, so it’s really going to have to be good. He likes it with the brown sugar and marshmallows and all that. Mine isn’t going to have that. Sweet potatoes are SO sweet on their own! I think the recipe I found MAY call for a bit of brown sugar, but just a sprinkling. Then instead of marshmallows, it will be topped with pecans. I’m excited!
Then last, but definitely 100% not least, there’s the desserts. Yea plural.
Pumpkin cheesecake! I made this last year and it was a hit. It’s a recipe I found that involves reduced fat vanilla wafers as the crust, and 1/3 the fat and fat free cream cheese. I believe it’s two fat free and 3 1/3 of the fat packages of cream cheese, and of course natural pumpkin. It’s so good you can’t tell the difference.
And then good old pumpkin pie. I’m using a weight watchers recipe, and I think phyllo dough plays a part in the crust and its definitely way better points wise. Only 4 instead of 10!
I will probably be buying a sugar free apple pie, simply because I’m certainly not a baker whatsoever and I think two pies is enough to send me over the edge as far as my baking skills go.
There will also be breyers fat free ice cream, which if you haven’t tried yet you must! Seriously NOONE knows the difference, I wouldn’t even. It’s that good I swear.

I’m hoping that everything goes off without a hitch. I haven’t quite worked out how I’m going to cook both the turkey and the ham? I only have one oven. But I think if I get the the turkey in soon enough ill have time after its cooked to get the ham done before people arrive. I know the ham is fully cooked but it still has a bit of time to bake.
My mother will be in Florida during the holiday which really sucks and is quadruple lame sauce but whatever. So my dad will be celebrating with us. Joes family is invited but you can’t be too sure with his parents because they typically call on the day of with some reason they can’t make it. I don’t mean to speak badly of them, and truly I’m not, because I’m telling the truth. 9x out of 10 they cancel. And if they do show up they have to leave very early for whatever reason. So it may end up just being Joey, my dad, and myself. My older brother Eric may join us as well. My other two brothers are married and typically spend the holidays with their in laws for the most of it, and since my mom won’t be around it kind of splits everything up. Last year she cooked a week ahead so that she could have everyone together and so that they could all spend time at one place and not have to drive to two different houses for two different dinners with all the kids. But this year I don’t think she’s doing that.
I hope joeys parents do make it because he’s been talking a lot recently about how his whole family used to get together a lot for dinners and that sort of things and he misses it, naturally. I hoped that by volunteering to host that it would take the burden, financially, off of them from having to worry about it and that we could just all enjoy each others company. So cross your fingers everyone!

This post is getting extremely lengthy but I have more thing to talk about.
Yesterday Joey had some friends over, which meant me compulsively cleaning every inch of the house. I even moved our entire bed and vacuumed under there, I dusted the LEGS of our end tables, and steam cleaned all the carpet. Which is our whole house. He could not understand why I was so intent about cleaning things that noone would even see, but it’s the only way I can feel comfortable about having people over. Our house is pretty much always tidy and ready for visitors, but when there’s multiple people over I just feel like that’s more eyes to catch whatever things we have literally swept under the rug.
Along with doing all of that cleaning I also managed to lay out a pretty sweet spread of food. With joeys help of course. Together we accomplished a 3 lb beef brisket slow cooked for 8 hours, which turned out to be incredibly amazing. Two pizzas. HOMEMADE. Joey makes the BESt pizza. It’s whole wheat dough, fat free mozzarella, a tomato sauce, and turkey pepperoni. It always tastes so much better than delivery or digiorno, and I’m just not saying that because I love the cook! Pizza always turns my stomach these days, whether its from all the grease or the cheese I’m not sure. But his pizza is to die! I also made a five layer dip with fat free refried beans, fat free sour cream, weight watchers Mexican cheese, salsa, and wholey guacamole. This was so yum! There was also a cheese as turkey pepperoni tray with crackers. A lot of people showed up and it was really awesome to just have a bunch of our friends over. There was an eagles/Dallas game on, and joeys a Dallas fan all the way, so it was interesting to hear all the shouting but this time from two sides.
Everyone loved the food and noone even knew it was better for you!

Okay I really can’t go on anymore. I’m sitting at work waiting on the boys to wake up, while hoping they stay asleep all day since they have off from school. It’s going to be an awful nightmare with all three today. I’m honestly getting sick to my stomach even thinking about it.
Wish me luck?