Tag Archives: Noom

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12 Week Reward

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Well, after all the whining in my last post…IT HAPPENED! Twelve weeks and I made that 20 pound loss mark, 20.2 pounds actually. I am so beyond jacked!

I have four more weeks in my initial Noom registration. In that four weeks my goals are to lose five more pounds, to increase my two daily walks by 10 minutes for an extra 20 minutes a day, and to investigate some new diabetic-friendly recipes that are also calorie-friendly and Noom-friendly.

Anyway, today has been a very good day. Thanks for following along this journey, Dear Readers.

Meet me at the Kingdom.

Donna

PS. I am booked at Disney’s Port Orleans Resort French Quarter for my 65th birthday. Finally plan to attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party and the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT. It’s something to plan for, and something to help me stay on the straight and narrow.

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Hard Fought Progress

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I have to tell you this is the hardest I have ever worked in my life to take off weight. Each pound, heck, each ounce, is slow, steady work. I do feel stronger than I did ten weeks ago. I have to make an appointment to see my Doc though. After having high blood pressure for years and being on meds, suddenly my blood pressure is low. I’ll keep checking for a few days just to make sure.

All this work. All these healthy, calorie conscious meals. Taking two walks each day. This is hard work for me. But I am happy being 18 pounds down in my ten weeks on Noom. Is all the work worth it? You betcha!

I have visions of Disneyland Paris dancing in my head. It’s still nearly two years until we hope to visit there. I might have just enough time to take off a few more pounds. 🙂

Meet me at the Kingdom!

Donna

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Halfway Through

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Today I begin my ninth week on Noom. It’s the halfway point as Noom is a sixteen week program. I’ve lost fifteen pounds in eight weeks, I am very happy with that result. My metabolism has finally kicked in so I am not gaining weight every other day like I was when I started. It’s a very livable program. The psyche tricks are good. The support is great. And it is exposing me to new ways of thinking about food and movement.

I’ve been having fun listening to some new music when I take my walks. Taylor Swift‘s new album, Love, has a couple of tracks that I’ve fallen for: ME! and You Need to Calm Down are very fun and poppy. The Jonas Brothers‘ Happiness Begins album is fantastic. I especially like Sucker, Cool, Happy When I’m Sad and Rollercoaster. The songs are great, and they are a good pace for my walk. And I’m enjoying the soundtrack to the movie Ugly Dolls. I mean, Kelly Clarkson, Janelle Monae, Bebe Rexha and Pentatonix all on one album? Yes, please!

So as I keep eating better and moving more, I am encouraged by my energy level and the feeling of well being that I have. This journey is really tough. Some days I drag myself out the door for a walk. Some days I fly out the door. Some days I wake up feeling strong and empowered. Some days I drag myself out of bed and struggle to put one foot in front of the other. But my resolve to stay the course is strong.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, Dear Readers. I truly appreciate your support and encouragement.

Meet me at the Kingdom.

Donna

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3 steps forward, 2 steps back

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Time to check back in with you, Dear Readers. Eight weeks in on my Noom program, I am down 13 pounds. I have faced large ups and incremental downs on the road to 13 pounds. In a day and a half at the 4th of July I gained six pounds, and I didn’t eat nearly as crazily as I have in the past. but it was salty, heavy foods. It took me a week to re-lose the six pounds. BUT it did happen with hard work and determination.

Then we traveled back to the beautiful U.P. to visit with relatives and friends. There are two foods that are prevalent in the mid-U.P. (Land of many, many Finns like me) that I choose to not resist: pasty and cudighi. And I enjoyed both twice while there.

Pasty consists of potato, rutabaga, onion, ground beef wrapped in a crust. The U.P. is Iron Mining Country. (Please, don’t call it the Rust Belt! That has a very negative connotation.) So when the Cornish miners came over to be the bosses at the iron mines, they brought pasties. They made a great miners lunch, kept warm in tin foil in their lunch pail. They could wash them down with hot coffee from their thermoses. Anyway, they were the meal of choice at least a couple of times a month when I was growing up in the U.P.

Cudighi is really only found in the U.P. It is like Italian sausage, but the spices are a bit different. There are many Italian descendants in the U.P. too. Cudughi is usually served on a crusty white bun, with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, onions, green pepper. So scrumptious!

Well, after five days away, I gained 10 pounds, yes, a shocking 10 pounds! It was mostly salt and retaining fluids, but it was still a shock. The weight came off in five days of eating well and walking more.

Do I recommend this type of binging? No. Do I regret that I did it? No. I made the conscious decision to eat and enjoy these childhood favorites while I was on vacation. I savored every bite.

Now I’m back home and recommitted to my Noom program and to my pilgrimage to better health. I really do want to be able to walk around Disneyland Paris with my family in 2021. This is the journey I am on. And, hey, today was really exciting because I dropped below another 10 pound mark on the scale. Woo hoo!

Meet me at the Kingdom.

Donna

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Christmas in July

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Ok, so here’s the deal. I love Christmas! When I say that, people usually say, “Oh, I like Christmas, too.” They do not understand. When I say, “I love Christmas,” I mean, I LOVE Christmas!! As a matter of fact, I love the whole month of December.

How could I not? My birthday is the first week of December. My brother’s birthday is the second week of December. My other brother’s wedding anniversary is the third week of December. Christmas is the fourth week of December. And then the month is capped off with the celebration of the New Year.

Party, party, party, right? And that’s pretty much the way it was at our house growing up. We had something to celebrate every single week, so who cared if it was cold and super snowy outside? It was a golden month.

So maybe you’ll understand why I celebrate Christmas in July. I watch Christmas movies on Hallmark. I drink my coffee in the morning out my favorite Christmas mug. And I make it a point to greet the people I see. Rather than “Merry Christmas”, I say, “Hello, how are you doing today?” No slipping by people with eyes averted. No being stuck in my own shell. I make a concerted effort to engage people.

It feels good. My mood is elevated. All seems right with my nearby world.

So “Hello, Dear Readers, how are you doing today?”

Meet me at the Kingdom!

P.S. I’m still Nooming and still watching the scale move slowly down. I’m getting in more steps each day, and I’m selecting foods that are good for my body. “I feel good, da da da da da da da. You know that I should now, da, da, da, da, da, da, da…”

P.P.S. Today’s featured photo is my son-in-love placing the tree topper on our Christmas tree. I love it!

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Riding the (Now) Life Style Wave

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This is my life now. Eating better and moving more.  I’ve befriended breakfast. I am eating regularly on a schedule whenever possible. I am mindful of my portions and measuring when in doubt. I am attempting to unprocess my diet. I am fighting to lose the way I label things, like “Oh well, I made a mistake so this whole day is shot. I might as well eat…” I have ditched the high calorie drinks. I am eating more mindfully, focusing on the food not distractions.

And yet I have resigned myself to the fact that losing weight quickly is a thing of the past for me. I am 63 years old, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Three weeks in I’ve lost nine pounds. Nine hard earned pounds. Just a drop in the proverbial bucket. But I feel so much better than I did three weeks ago. I mean, so much better. I have more energy. I have lost my sugar cravings. I am sleeping better. And I am moving more. Wins all around, right?

That’s where I am. Beyond the honeymoon phase and on to the hard-work phase. Now to just keep on keeping on.

Meet you at the Kingdom.

Donna

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Delicious Day

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This morning I woke up with a craving. I wanted a bagel. I knew there were still two Thomas’s Everything Bagels in the bread cupboard, and some Philadelphia Cream Cheese in the fridge. My Noom app let me check out the calories, and it didn’t look bad. So I treated myself to a bagel and two tablespoons of cream cheese for breakfast. It was pure bliss! I used up all of my red calories for the day, but it was so worth it today.

Noom is structured in a red foods, yellow foods and green foods method. Red is not bad, but the goal is to keep those calories to 25% of daily caloric intake. They recommend 45% yellow foods and 30% green foods. Here’s what Noom has to say about red foods, “Red foods simply raise a red flag for foods that contain a lot of calories without filling you up. So while you can eat green foods in larger quantities, you need to be more mindful of how much red foods you’re eating.”

Noom does recommend a treat once a week, so that incredible bagel was my treat. Every time I put something in my mouth, I’m making a decision. Am I going to eat something that will build my body up like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean proteins? Or am I going to settle for something that will excite my taste buds for a few minutes, but potentially sabotage my body like candy, cake, cookies, or the myriad or other sugary foods that I seem to prefer? Today I will choose the former. Since I had such a satisfying treat for breakfast, my lunch will be a salad, and my dinner will be baked salmon with a small portion of sweet potato and some fresh raw vegetables.

And today I will add five minutes to my walk. Five more minutes trucking to the sound of the JoBros. (I really love their new CD!) My body will thank me tomorrow.

Meet me at the Kingdom.

Donna

P.S. My weight fluctuated in my preferred way this morning, down another half pound. A nice treat after yesterday’s weigh -in.

 

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Ebbs and Flows

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I had a perfect Noom day yesterday. I stayed in my calorie count. I exercised. I got my steps in. It was a wonderful accomplishment. However, when I weighed myself this morning fully expecting to weigh the same or slightly less than yesterday, I was .2 pounds up.

My first thought was That can’t be right. So I stepped on the scale again and again and one more time. It was right.

The body is a funny thing. the littlest things can make our weight fluctuate. I know this from previous weight programs: Weight Watchers, Tops, Jenny Craig, and many more. I have lost weight on all these programs, hundreds of pounds throughout the years. They all work. And I’ve put those pounds back on. But in all of them I learned that our bodies fluctuate. Sometimes we retain water. Sometimes we don’t. That’s why I’m not discouraged.

I’ve never been a fan of getting on the scale every day. It’s one of the rules for Noom. But I do think it is interesting to see how weight fluctuates daily, so I’ll keep hopping on that scale every morning.

I know I just have to keep on keeping on. Keep making healthy food choices within my calorie budget, keep getting my daily steps in, keep exercising, and keep believing that this change is possible. I can become a healthier me. I’m on my way there right now.

Meet me at the Kingdom.

Donna

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Routine and Surprise

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This morning I officially restarted Noom. So I weighed in (I hate that part), I’m logging my food, I did my ten minute lesson, and I started walking. Since I am retired, I can sustain the routine pretty easily. But I’ve got to tell you, I only walked for ten minutes, and it totally kicked my butt! (See the red, sweaty face in today’s photo.) The weight that I’ve regained in the last eight months is mostly in my belly and butt. Yugh! Moving around is so exhausting! That fat used to be more evenly distributed; now it’s concentrated in my mid-section. I’m not discouraged; however, I realize that I have  a long road ahead of me. I am not at all defeated, defeat for me is defined by quitting. I will not quit!

In 21 months we hope to vacation at Disneyland Paris. As Disney Vacation Club members, we can trade our points for five nights at Disney’s Sequoia Lodge in Marne-la-Vallee, France. We’d like to go Paris rather than Orlando next time so Emi (my daughter who lives in England) and her family don’t have the expensive flights for one vacation. So we’ll spend five nights there, visit the parks for two or three days, and head into Paris for a day or two.

This trip is my long term motivation for sticking to better food choices and for keeping more movement/walking in my daily life. I have 21 months to do this, and I want to focus every day of those 21 months on a healthier, more mobile lifestyle.

Now for the surprise: we had a short, but very sweet, drop-in visit from our dear friends Wayne and Caleb. They swung in for a cup of coffee on their way to a conference. What a delightful treat! It was a slice of Yooper heaven. Mike and I grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, so we are Yoopers born and bred. This visit was such an unexpected blessing!

Thank you for you faithfulness, Dear Readers! Meet me at the Kingdom!

Donna

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Starting down the Road Toward Disneyland Paris

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Hello Dear Readers,

Well, I finally decided to face the music. Ever since our trip to Walt Disney World in October of 2018, I have been completely off the rails.  Eating every sugary thing in sight, and sitting all day long. I’ve packed on over 30 pounds, and I feel pretty lousy.  Low energy, cranky most of the time, isolating myself. And frankly, I’ve been a bit depressed.  Wow! First world problems, right??

I restarted Noom, an online weight management program, today. It worked well for me before, so I re-upped. Tomorrow I start my daily walks again. And I will choose less dense foods, foods with more water content. For example I’ll choose a cup of grapes over a 1/4 cup of raisins. I’ll pick 1/4 pound of salad over 1/4 pounder from McDonalds, a hard-boiled egg over a fried egg, lettuce rather than a tortilla for a wrap, and a baked potato over fries.

I’m also going to start some self talk when I walk. “Heart, this walk is for you, to make you stronger. Legs, this walk is for you, to build more muscle. Brain, this walk is for you, to get more oxygen to you.” Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

My ultimate goal is looking toward March 2021, when we hope to meet up with the kids and grandkids at Disneyland Paris for 6 days/5 nights. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise…  We make plans and God smiles, right? But this goal will help to keep me on track. They do not have ECVs there, only wheel chairs, so I want to be able to get myself around the parks. I want to enjoy every minute of our time together there.

So here we go again, dear friends. One foot in front of the other, one healthy meal at a time. Will I sustain it forever? I believe I can. Mostly I believe I can do it today. And tomorrow is a new opportunity to do it again.

Join me on this road to Paris. The possibilities are so exciting. The road is mine, with the help of God, to create and choose.

Meet me at the Kingdom.

Donna