Noom

It's no secret here that I have struggled with my weight since having Paige. I'm not going to rehash everything now, if you are so inclined you can find more about this rollercoaster I've been on here. I made a goal this year {and many other years} to lose weight, and I wanted to share what I've done to *hopefully* turn that goal into a reality!

I downloaded Noom and have been using it for 2 weeks! I'm very fortunate that my company provides us a 'well-being' allowance each year and the cost of this was covered, yay!

2 weeks in, and I'm really enjoying it and find it easy to follow and use. There are 3 main things I'm doing every day with Noom.

1) Tracking food.

2) Weighing daily.

3) Reading articles about the psychology of eating.

When I do all 3, I get a coin {y'all know I'm all about prizes} and there are things that happen as you earn coins.

1) Tracking food. I actually really like the way Noom tracks food. It feels easy and completely manageable. I have tracked macros and found it to be exhausting, but this feels really doable. 

All foods are lumped into colors - green, yellow, and orange. They purposefully didn't use red because there aren't any colors that are off-limits {which is great for someone who loves 'bad' food}. In a perfect world, you would eat 30% green, 45% yellow, and 25% orange. You can actually eat unlimited green, but I love how they talk about this being boring ha. So what can you eat? 

Your calorie/color category allocation is based up on your gender, age, starting weight, and activity level, and it can increase throughout the day based on how active you are {you get 50% of your calories from movement added back as additional calories you can eat - so if I burn 500 calories, I can eat an additional 250 calories}. You also have a range - if you eat on the low end of the range, your weight loss will be closer to 2 pounds/week, and if you eat on the high end, your weight loss will be closer to .5 pounds/week. I love having that flexibility!

2) Weighing daily. I had mixed feelings about the ask to weigh daily. I find for myself I can get too fixated on a number on the scale and I don't like weighing daily because I get upset when I don't EVERY DAY see the number getting lower {which I know in my brain is unrealistic}. However, it is also easy to bury my head in the sand and ignore the scale...which I have done numerous times and shocker, I've gained back weight with that mindset. And no one is forcing me to get on the scale, I can make the choice to not weigh - I just lose my chance to earn my coin for the day, ha.

3) Reading articles. Every day I have articles to read on the psychology of why we eat. You set the amount of minutes you want to spend each day on articles {again for earning your coins}, and I chose 5-8 minutes. This is usually 2-3 little articles. The articles are part of a broader lesson series. The lessons consist of understanding more about why we eat but also giving practical tips for putting those lessons into use.

The app also has workout plans and hundreds and hundreds of recipes! It is a really well-rounded app that seems to hit all aspects of trying to lose weight. 2 weeks in and I'm very impressed!

Here's a message I got on Saturday after I earned my coin for the day.

See the psychology at work here? Ha!

Now we'll have to see how this actually plays out as the newness wears off, but so far this seems like a great program!

February 2023 Book Review

How is it already March? I am so excited that spring is right around the corner!

This month I read 10 books - bringing my total to 25, and honestly it wasn't my favorite month of reading. I had TWO books that I rated with 2 stars! I had 2 books ALL of last year rated 2 stars, so to have 2 in a month is a lot. But that's not to say the whole month was a bust!

The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore - I bought this book from a local, independent bookstore on our trip to Hilton Head, and it was really good! It was historical fiction set in the 1920s about a woman in California with tuberculosis who was sent to a 'home' {felt a lot like prison} in Louisiana {a real place}. I didn't know much about TB and found the story fascinating. 

Spare by Price Harry [audiobook] - If you know me, you know I'm fascinated by the Royal Family. I was very interested in hearing Harry's story, and this did not disappoint. I didn't love the whole thing {there was way more about his time in the military than I cared to know about}, but it was a great book and I really thought he did a great job telling his story. It was also fun hearing him read it, I highly recommend the audiobook.

Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton [audiobook] - Something else British that I love is Harry Potter!!! This was fantastic! Tom was so funny and self-deprecating and a natural storyteller. I loved the stories he chose to share and how vulnerable he was - everything from the audition process for HP to his struggle with addiction and mental health. I was tearing up at the end and thought it was such a stellar read. Bonus again to hear his cute British accent read me his story. {grin} 

The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger - We read this for Blog Friend Book Club {our 27th book!}, and a book like this is one of the reasons I love being in a book club {or two or three or...}. I would never have picked this book myself, but it was very good! It's a climate change story about a family surviving the aftermath of the first category 6 hurricane that wipes out south Florida. We had some great discussion and enjoyed it!

The Tourist Attraction by Sarah Morganthaler - This was just a run of the mill rom com. I didn't love it but it was good.

The Hollow by Jessica Verday - Ugh. Another instructor at the gym LOVED this trilogy and was so excited to share it with me, and I didn't enjoy this first one. It felt like a worse version of Twilight. Super angsty teenage love drama with a paranormal element. It wasn't super long, so I'm going to keep going in the trilogy {I'm about 75 pages into the 2nd book and it feels better}, but at this point I can't recommend.

From Scratch by Tembi Locke - Wow. This was such a beautiful book. I was crying in the Prologue! Tembi wrote her memoir about losing her husband to cancer and dealing with her grief. Her husband was from Sicily and was a chef, so there were lots of amazing stories of her time in Sicily/Italy and especially stories of food! I can't wait to watch the Netflix show next!

The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas - I read The Spanish Love Story last year and thought it was cute. It wasn't my favorite rom com, but I enjoyed it and was excited for this sequel. Well, this fell pretty flat for me womp, womp. It could have been really cute [forced proximity] but I found myself skimming a lot - I didn't want to quit it but it was close.

The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson - This was another sequel - to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek - which I thoroughly enjoyed! This author had a way of really painting this story for me, and I genuinely enjoyed the characters and were rooting for them!

Finding Me by Viola Davis [audiobook] - And then I finished the month with this HOMERUN read. Holy moly, this was amazing! First off, Viola's story is incredible. Just absolutely doesn't seem like a real story, I was shocked at the things she endured as a child - the poverty, the racism, the abuse - any single 1 of them could have been crushing to a person, but to overcome them all? Just wow. Then add to it the writing - it was beautifully written. AND add that Viola was a brilliant narrator - the absolute icing on the cake. 0% surprised she won a Grammy for this recording. I thought she was an incredible talent before this book, now I am just in awe of her.

I ended my month with a range of ratings from 2 all the way to 5, so it was a wild month. My average was 3.55, which is low for me. So here's hoping for a better month of reading in March!