Weigh To Go! Part 6

December’s Starting Weight: 178.9 Last Month’s Weigh-In: 152.8 Today’s Weigh-In: 148.6 Total Lost To Date: 30.3 Thirty pounds lost! I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far! Not to mention that I’ve finally hit those 140’s I’ve been dreaming about. So 4.2 pounds lost for the month of June. I’m so happy with this and considering what an insane month this has been, I don’t think I could have asked for more. I have missed being able to post more this month but I’m always thinking of you guys even if I can’t put my thoughts out there. I’ve been training like a madwoman at my new job and I’m hoping that after I get into the swing of things then I’ll be able to start posting on a more regular basis. On the non-number front, those jeans that were too tight back in the beginning of last month are actually now loose on me. Tonight I threw them in the wash and for the first time ever, I will be putting them into the dryer instead of hang drying them because I actually need them to shrink up a little bit. I’m still pinching myself…

A Blah Kind Of Day

Some days I don’t know what I want to eat. I open the pantry door and then I open the fridge door and I go back and forth between the two but don’t know what I’m looking for. Today was that kind of day. Nothing that I ate hit the spot. I can tell TOM is coming because about the only thing I really wanted to eat was my weight in chocolate!

Looking For Insight

As I’ve talked about several times, restaurant eating can prove challenging to me. I’ve spent countless hours mulling over why I showed up at a restaurant with the best of intentions to eat the healthier, lighter meals and found myself instead swimming through the most calorific meal on the menu. But here’s the thing, why haven’t I spent the same amount of time analyzing the times where I went to a restaurant and made fantastic choices? Why the focus on the negative and complete ignoring of the positive? We ate at the Olive Garden this weekend and I had the Minestrone soup, a serving of salad, and a breadstick. It totally hit the spot and I stopped eating because I was satisfied and full. For a dinner, it was more than within calorie range and it fit perfectly into my food plan for the whole day. Why did this time (and many of the times lately) go exactly according to schedule? Why am I not tempted to gorge myself lately when other times I find myself weeks into a binge that doesn’t have any end in sight? Even though I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, I’m not sure why. I just feel like if I understand it, then I’ll be able to keep doing it.

The Plan: To Make A Plan

Thank you to everyone for all the nice encouraging comments on the last post! It feels so nice to read them because I know that you guys know just how much that victory meant to me. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you guys are the best! All of you bloggers mean so much to me and I had to make sure you all know that. Boy, did I have a crazy day today! I’m so tired right now; it’s after 10 and I just barely got home. It makes my head spin to think that I’ll be pulling these 14 hour days for the next few months. More than anything, this schedule requires planning in advance to keep on track with eating. I need to bring enough bottled water to get me through the day and something for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. The food I bring has to be something that can be dragged around for up to 14 hours and ideally doesn’t require refrigeration or microwaving but is hearty enough to actually pass as a meal. I don’t know about you guys but I tend to be the type of person who needs at least one hot meal a day. It’s really going to take some effort because this is often how I fall into the trap of eating crap ass foods. I tell myself that I deserve to eat: The greasy, oily pizza from the vendor at school because it’s the only “real” (where real equals hot) food I’ve eaten all day! Or that a Snickers bar makes a great dinner because peanuts are good for you! Or that Doritos are almost a vegetable because they’re made out of corn! Or many of the other numerous little excuses that I come up with when I’m tired and hungry. Luckily, I stayed on track with my eating today but I was a total bitch while doing it. Also, I obviously wasn’t able to workout today due to my crazy schedule. How strange after it has become such a routine part of my day! I don’t like sitting at a work desk and then sitting at a school desk and then going home to lie in a bed; I need some activity! I think I’ll make an effort to use the stairs, move the trash bin further from my desk, use further away restrooms, etc., etc. just so I get up and move around a little. Ok, I'm off to read how your day went!

Success!

Tomorrow is the last day of my 5-Week Exercise Everyday Challenge. A jog in the morning will round off what is probably the biggest exercise goal I have ever accomplished! I start my new job on Monday and between a new work schedule and summer school hours I’ll be back to finding sporadic time to cram a work out session in. I can’t believe I’m actually sad that I won’t be able to work out everyday anymore! If you had told me this back in December when I started this blog, I would have laughed at it’s impossibility. But I guess that shows you what a few months can do! Have a great weekend everybody!

Honesty Is The Best Policy

I have made a commitment to track all my calories in a food journal because that seems to really help me stay on track. It helps me be honest with myself and also it shows me how easy it is to eat extra calories throughout the day. Many years ago before I ever started making an effort to lose weight I would serve myself heaping bowls of food and then take extra bites out of whatever I was serving myself. I would serve myself gigantic bowls of ice cream (enough servings for about three to four adults) and then I would take a few more bites out of the carton before putting it back into the fridge. Same with dinners, after polishing off a heaping plateful of spaghetti, I’d vulture over the sauce pan eating a few more large bites of the meat sauce. Eating enough really that if it were measured out, it would be like eating an additional serving but in my mind I hadn’t gone back for seconds because it never touched the plate. (Oh the lies we tell ourselves!) Fast forward to nowadays where I track everything that goes in my mouth. I love my spreadsheet full of food choices; it makes me feel so on top of things and organized! Yesterday, I grabbed three almonds out of the canister just because I was in the mood for something salty but I had already used up all my cals for the day. For a second I hesitated jotting down those almonds in my food journal. I figured, “What’s three measly little almonds? They’re hardly anything at all!” but in the end I decided I would write them down. It’s part of my “Just because you didn’t write it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen” motto. After doing the math, I realized those measly three almonds registered in at ten calories. Not ridiculous but wonder if I decided to eat three almonds every time I opened the pantry door but didn’t record them because I figured that they weren’t worth counting? Knowing me, I’d probably eat a few hundred calories extra and then moan and complain about how I was eating so good and so on track and the scales weren’t moving and blah, blah, blah. If in the future I do hit a rut it’s nice to go back and look at the food journal and find the weeks where things were working good. But it doesn’t help me at all if I’ve fudged the entries. So I’m going to continue to embrace my inner anal-compulsive geek who loves spreadsheets and sum formulas for now. She might come in handy later on if the going gets tough!

Feeling Like Myself Again

Thanks for your lovely comments last post; I’ve pulled myself out of my pity party and now am feeling back on track! I think every once in awhile I have to stop and ask myself “Am I really committed to this?” and every time the answer comes back overwhelmingly, “Yes!” It’s like Patl said, one day I’ll be 40. I can be healthy and living with good habits at 40 or I can have health problems related to obesity at 40. I know what I want to be. I figure that some days may be rough but it’s all worth it. The pup and I are planning a nice walog tonight. The Foot is 100% improved and back to normal. Ibuprophen, massages, and limiting how often I wear high heels helped and now I know that I have to change up the exercise; oh Steely Dan, you and I have such a long history of a love hate relationship! Happy Friday everyone and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Ramblings And Musings

My postings have been a bit sporadic lately. Things have been hectic for me and they’re just finally starting to settle down now. I’ve been meaning to write but I’ve spent more time just contemplating this whole weight thing and haven’t been able to form any cohesive thoughts to put down; so instead of rambling on about nothing I’ve just been silent. Yet today I had some thoughts that however random they are, I felt I wanted to write down. Today was beautiful outside. For the first time in weeks the temperature was well below the 100’s and it was wonderfully overcast. I love the smell of rain on the breeze; it happens so little where I live so the pup and I spent some time just sitting out in the backyard and enjoying it. These are often the best conditions for me to just sit and let my thoughts go. I was thinking that it’s hard to balance thinking of the long-term with the short-term. You have to keep remembering your goals and why you want to keep plodding ahead while at the same time remembering to take every day one step at a time. Take for instance today. I did my usual work out and tracked my meals in my food journal, a big gold star for today. But all these birthday dinners and lunches did their damage earlier this week. Even though my calories never exceeded 2,000 and I exercised like a fiend I feel about five pounds heavier and my shirts and pants feel so tight across my stomach. It doesn’t even feel like bloat or water retention. It feels like a couple of days of bad eating that now has to be corrected. Even worse than that, I’m fighting the temptation to keep eating all these rich, heavy foods. I still haven’t learned how to incorporate a little indulgence into my life. After all these years of doing this, I still have this attitude of either staying on track or careening off into binge land. It’s hard to remember that each day is a new day. Some will be successful and some will present themselves as little setbacks. I just keep dwelling on how those few days throw me out of the zone and now I have to work twice as hard to get back into it. I keep telling myself that the important thing is that I’m still exercising and tracking my meals and that this is a success in itself. But even though it has become a habit for me to do these things, I still find that everyday presents itself as a new challenge to “do the right thing”. It becomes daunting to know that tomorrow will be the same challenge, and the next day, and a month from now, and really let’s face it, a lifetime. Twenty years from now I will probably still be dealing with some aspect of my weight. Even after reaching goal, maintenance is a challenge in itself and I will probably always be prone to this struggle. No matter how many good habits I learn along the way, this will always require some effort. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic or like a big downer. An overwhelming majority of the days I feel more than up to the challenge but there are occasions, even when I’m probably still winning the fight, where I doubt just how up to it I really am. Most days I reflect on how far I’ve come but sometimes there are days where you just dwell on how far you have to go. Sometimes I feel a little weary of this journey and it scares me because I know I’m only half way there and worse yet that the next part of the trip may prove harder than this first half has been. Please don’t let my negativity get to you. I struggled with if I should even post this now or wait until tomorrow finds me with renewed dedication and optimism. But I figured this blog is about the whole journey, the ups and downs, the good the bad and the ugly. If anything, maybe you all can relate and in that sense, even on yucky days like today, I’m not alone.

Birthday!

Hey! Today is my Birthday! I know that as some people get older they begin to dread birthdays but I absolutely love them. I think that even when I’m 96 like Patl’s Aunt Edna, I’ll still be just as excited for them! So I did a birthday weigh-in this morning and came up as 151.2. Oh so close! Not the 140’s like I had hoped but that does mean that I’ve lose a little over a pound and a half this week. And that’s still something to be proud of myself over. Also, on the foot front. I bought the gel inserts and went for about an hour jog last night. Even though there was still a slight ache, it was ten times improved. I'm still breaking down and making a doctor's appointment though. I absolutely dread the doctor but I don't want this to turn into an actual problem, so I'll go. Especially when the lovely Emma, whose call of duty is to nursing, mentions something that ends in –itis; that’s enough to send me shuffling off to the sick house! Thanks for convincing me, girlies! So today in honor of my Birthday, we’re going to P.F. Chang’s. That lovely meal will be followed by double layer chocolate cake and ice cream. Then tomorrow it’s Birthday dinner with my husband’s family with more cake. Then Tuesday, it’s Birthday lunch with my friends followed by Wednesday Birthday dinner with another group of friends. Yikes! That’s a lot of temptation and chance for unnecessary calories! Going out to eat always makes me nervous because restaurant food is my nemesis. You put a restaurant meal in front of me and the seduction is complete; without my realizing, I end up face down in the food and don’t come up for air until the plate is polished clean. It’s always been this way for me and since I might as well get used to eating out, as it will always be an issue to deal with, I’ve come up with a plan: First, as bad as I am at estimating calories I’m still going to make an attempt to track them. Even if I eat way off my target calorie range, not writing it down does not mean it didn’t happen! Second, I’m not going to gorge myself like a pig. I’ll allow myself to eat whatever I want but I still want to aim for a reasonable portion size. Even if the portion sizes are larger than I eat on a normal day that’s ok, I just don’t want to see myself eating for a family of four. Third, because it’s really just impossible to stay on calories at this point, I’m going to try to offset any caloric damage with fantastic amounts of exercise. Swimming, bike riding, strength training (all easy on The Foot) should give me a little leeway and also will help get rid of the bloat and fat lethargic feeling that unhealthy food always gives me. Ok loves, I’m off to the pool! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Working Hard, Hardly Working

So I found a new job! That is such a huge relief; I was starting to panic a little there! I’m especially glad because it doesn’t start until the third week of June, which gives me a few weeks off with nothing to do but go to summer school. I plan to make the most of this time. I’m extending my 3-Week Workout Everyday Challenge to a 5-Week Challenge. I’m hoping the month of June is going to be a big weight loss month. Hopefully when I post my weigh-in on the 28th the numbers will be low 140’s! Very exciting! I am loving what this exercise does for me. I feel like I have more energy and that my body is finally showing some real noticeable changes. That being said, I’m noticing a problem with my right heel. Of course when I finally get my act together and start eating and exercising properly, something threatens to spoil it. I’m not even sure what’s wrong with my heel. I noticed when I was working out that it feels a little like pins and needles on the bottom of the heel, right below the arch. At first it was only when working out and it wasn’t that bad; more annoying than anything. This week however, it has gotten bad enough to be called painful and while it hasn’t stopped my routines, it actually hurt enough where I wanted to stop exercising. Then I noticed that it continued to hurt even a few hours later. Now I notice a dull ache in it almost all the time. Anybody have any ideas what’s going on? Could it just be overuse and I need to stretch the foot out or could it be something that requires rest? I hope it’s nothing serious, I couldn’t bear to give up my 5-Week Challenge! I’m just tickled with the idea and even more tickled by the fact that I’m excited to do it. Later on today I think I’ll go buy some gel inserts for my gym shoes. Maybe that will help cushion and support the heel and arch. Also, tomorrow is my birthday and I’ll be doing a special weigh-in. Check back tomorrow to see if I made it into the 140’s after all. I’m going to do a big workout routine tonight just to see if I can push it along, so here’s hoping!