Troubleshooting Weight Gain

This is the football cake I made for Jason and Josiah's birthday party on Sunday.  This cake helped lead to too much food on Sunday.  I just had a little piece.  The funniest part was when I lit it.  I put 11 candles on one corner for Josiah and 14 candles on the other corner for Jason.  When I lit them I accidentally lit one of the goal posts on fire.  After catching that I continued to light the candles.  I was concentrating so hard on the candles until my 5-year-old nephew commented, "Hey, that football guy is on fire!"  It was a mess and it was so hilarious that I could barely continue lighting the candles, but it tasted good.

It's been an interesting week.  It started with a normal Saturday with a little extra craziness to get ready for a party. Sunday was the party so it was work, work, work.  It was also food, food, food.   I ate a little too much at the party but I tracked it all afterwards.

I started a new exercise DVD this week to up my exercise intensity and help burn off those party calories.  I have continued to track everything I have eaten this week.  I have made up for the party calories in exercise. All of that has gotten me a weight gain.

Most days I weigh myself at home in the morning before I eat or drink anything for the day.  That ensures me an accurate number to compare to the previous weight.  I also weigh-in on an empty stomach in the morning at Weight Watchers each week.  That leaves me no excuses for my weight there either.  Each day that I have weighed myself at home this week, the scale has been higher than the previous day.  At first, I blamed the party and figured the number would go down in a couple of days of good behavior.  It hasn't - it has continued to go up.  I'm trying not to be frustrated but each day, it gets harder to maintain my composure. Today, I decided that instead of losing my composure, I need to troubleshoot.  What am I doing to make this happen?  Am I doing it or is it just the way things are with our bodies from time to time? I've been doing this for long enough to know that sometimes we have unexplained weight gains that come back off with little to no effort.  Maybe this is one of those weight gains.

Just in case it's not one of those weight gains I've decided to do something about it.  It certainly can't hurt to be proactive.  I have several possibilities in my head for the reason for this weight gain.  If I tried to remedy it with all of those possibilities I would not know what the problem was and I would be expecting a lot of change all at once.  Therefore, I am going to focus on two main issues that I think may help with the problem.  If they don't work, I will move on to some of my other possibilities.

The first thing I think I have gotten lax on is eating all of my fruits and veggies each day.  Weight Watchers recommends at least 5 servings of fruits and/or veggies each day.  Most of those fruits and veggies are 0 points so I often don't track them.  I only track the things that actually have points to them.  That is leaving me with no idea if I am getting in all of my 5 servings each day.  Starting today, I am going to track all of my fruits and veggies no matter what PointsPlus Value they hold.  On the etools tracker I use on weightwatcher.com it also has a section where you can check off your servings as you eat them.  I will check them off each time I eat them to ensure that I get at least 5 servings.  I think I have been eating too many processed foods this week and this may be part of my problem.  Processed carbohydrates have been particularly high in my diet this week.  Because of this I will try to eat 7 servings of fruits and veggies each day to try detoxing my system a little bit.  The suggestion is to eat at least 5 servings.  It is okay to eat more than that.

This should help me in a few levels.  I should be less hungry because I am filled up with fruits and veggies.  It should also help me get rid of some of the processed stuff I have in my body right now. It will also help me get in more fiber and water since fruits and veggies are filled with fiber and water.

The second thing I am going to focus on is drinking all of my water.  I know I mentioned this in a previous blog just about a month ago: http://corinnaweightsupport.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-much-water-do-we-really-need-to.html  I am going to remember the things I mentioned in this blog and focus on drinking all of my water each day.  I have not been keeping track of that either so I am not sure if I have been drinking enough.

I am hoping that these 2 things help my body get back on track.  If not, I will keep up these things because they are good for me and then add a couple more things.

I don't know exactly what's going on.  I do know that I am willing to be patient with myself to figure it out.

If you have any ideas for me, please feel free to leave them in my comments section. People have recently have told me that they want to make comments but it's not letting them. Here is a link that may help: http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42399.  Also, one of my regular readers who comments left this advice for commenting: "If you have trouble leaving comments, just indicate that it's coming from Anonymous - that way it goes through. Sign your name to your comment if you want people to know who wrote it. Oh yea, then you have to put in those weird letters/numbers, too. LW"

Until next time,
Corinna

"But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, 'You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off'; do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." -Isaiah 41:8-10