Holiday Weight LOSS??!?

Week: 30

Pounds Lost: 49.2

Just before the holidays, my Weight Watchers leader challenged our group to set weight loss, maintenance or gain goals for the two weeks that covered the holiday season. She handed out little boxes with ribbons in them: you were to choose a green ribbon if you wanted to continue to lose weight over the holidays, yellow if you wanted to maintain your weight, and red for controlled weight gain (in the SINGLE digits, as our leader pointed out!)

I chose a yellow ribbon: I wanted to be able to moderately indulge in holiday goodies, but I definitely didn’t want to gain. In the end, I didn’t pay very close attention to what I ate over the holidays, but it seems my new habits stood me in good stead. I had some cheese fondue on Christmas Eve, and some chocolates in my stocking, and chinese takeout on New Year’s Eve, but it wasn’t what it would have been like last year.

For instance, with the cheese fondue, I also set out an indoor grill and made raclette with lean beef and vegetable slices (instead of an oil-based meat fondue). I had only six bread chunks to dip in the (incredibly delicious, winey/cheesy) fondue, and the rest of my meal was made up of grilled veggies and strips of lean grilled beef. And someone must have told Santa what was up at our house, because this year the stockings had a lot more of the undies, socks, soap and toothbrush-variety treats, and only a select few candies. (To put it in perspective, one year he brought me a large pack of twizzlers, a chocolate orange, and four – count ’em – FOUR boxes of chocolate covered cherries!) Then, on New Year’s Eve we had chinese takeout. We all (my kids love it as much as the Hubster and me) simply GORGED on it. It was one of those belly-groaners – I had two fully-loaded plates! But then I threw out the leftovers. Simply didn’t need that stuff tempting us on January 1 when we were trying to get the focus back on weight loss!

Now mind you, the days between Jan 1 and our Weight Watchers meeting on Jan 6 were tough, though. We were used to eating more food and more snacky, junky choices. Taking the time to wash some red grapes (a fave snack) seemed WAAAAYYYYY too much work all of a sudden! And it was so tempting to run out to the corner store for chips, or candy, or even those small tubs of Haagen-Dazs (why does a gas station need to carry Haagen-Dazs, anyway?).

But we worked our way through it, and when I weighed in again on Saturday, I had lost two whole pounds! I was some proud of myself, I tell ya! Turns out I could have taken the green ribbon after all. The only small, small disappointment came when our WW leader asked the group if anyone had a five or ten pound increment to celebrate (you get a sticker). My total weight loss is now 49.2 pounds – I would have dearly love to stand up and say "FIFTY" when our leader called out for 10lb achievements! (Can I possibly be a person who has lost FIFTY POUNDS??!?) Oh well, next weekend, right?

So now I have two nagging questions:

Number One: it’s time for me to decide if I really want to set my goal weight at 160 (the top of my Weight Watchers range) in order to get that coveted lifetime member status soon (I’m a mere 8lbs away). The only, only reservation I have with it, is that I’m afraid I’ll then settle for 160. Now, this will be a whopping 57 lb overall loss, and definitely nothing to sneeze about. But – in my heart – I really wanted to be at least in the 150s, and, even better, between 145 and 155. So, what do you think? Can I hold myself accountable enough to continue to lose another 10-15 lbs after I hit my WW "goal", or do you think I should just tough it out (I should say, continue to pay for it) and set my WW goal where my real, honest, personal goal is?

Number Two: I got a GAP gift certificate for Christmas, and I’m thinking about going on a bit of a spree. (Remember when I said one of my goals was to be able to shop at the GAP? Yay me!) But here’s the thing; I’m just about to fit into a size 10 – do I buy a bunch of clothes at this size, or do I hold on and see if I make it into a size 8? To be honest, just the fact that I’m even asking this question totally blows my mind! When I started this journey last summer, I was struggling to zip up my size 18 capri pants, and now I’m wondering if a size ten will be too big? I honestly never, never would have imagined it. But it sure does make me feel happy.