Adventures in whole wheat pasta

I love carbs. Especially white carbs. Oooh, yummy white carbs.

Today, though, I began changing my mentality, and loving brown carbs. Relearning how to like different types of foods, I guess.

So, the stats for today, New Year's Eve. I really wanted to eat a ton of chocolate today, but I was able to rescue most of the damage with some sugar free chocolate pudding.

Cereal
2 clementine oranges

brown rice
steamed veggies
sugar free chocolate pudding

Then I wound up grazing on some chocolate chip cookie dough. Sigh.

Spaghetti with whole wheat pasta

And I've got a bunch of veggies waiting for me later.

And I worked out for 25 minutes on my stair stepper thingy. And did 100 situps. And drank 6 glasses of water and two diet cokes.

Grocery Shopping the Skinny Girl way

So I struggle with grocery shopping. I know the stuff I'm supposed to buy, but somehow the cookie dough appears from out of nowhere, and I'm screwed.

Today was my first day of grocery shopping with my new Skinny Girl attitude. And I have another Small Victory to be happy about. Yeah, I did get some cookies. But I also got loads of fresh veggies and I have a plan to ensure that I eat them and they don't go to waste.

The thing about fresh vegetables is that it takes some time to prepare them, right? At least in my world, it is much easier to whip out spaghetti than make a salad, which entails getting out knives I didn't know I had, a cutting board, and chopping.

So when I got home with my bags of fresh celery and cauliflower and carrots, rather than just shove them in the crisper drawer and forgetting about them, I did something drastic. I got out the cutting board and the knife I didn't know I had, and I chopped. Then I got out my handy dandy ziploc bags and plastic containers, and voila!, I have salad fixings all ready to go.

Could it have been easier!

In other news, I tried to buy a scale today, but the scales at target were just waaaaay too fancy. I don't need a $70 "body composition" computer. I just need something that tells me when I'm not fat.

So for now, I'm going to be relying on my clothes and how I feel.

I was really proud of myself yesterday when we ordered pizza for our Friday Night Date Night and I got a salad (who knew Domino's had salads?) and just ate one piece of pizza. But then I was awake all night (maybe too much diet coke before bed?) and at about 3am, I went out to the kitchen and ate two pieces of pizza and three pieces of chocolate. I'm not sure what day to count them for.

Oh, and another small victory. I went to the mall this morning, and as is my custom, stopped at the Wentzel Pretzel place for an order of pretzel bits (ooh, they are so yummy) and a diet coke (pretzel bits don't count if you follow it with diet coke...oh, wait, that's something Fat Heather would think - not Skinny Heather). But anyway, today I just ate half the bag.

I'll take any small victories I can get, thanks very much.

the logic of chocolate

I have been thinking about why it's so hard for so many people, myself included, to lose weight. It's pretty straightforward stuff, right? Being fat is a symptom of eating more food than you get rid of through your daily activities and exercise. So to lose weight, you either eat less, exercise more, or do a combination of those two things. It's not rocket science, right? It's like balancing a checkbook. You don't spend more calories on chocolate than you have to spend.

It used to be that people who were fat were stylish because it meant that they had more money to buy meat than the poor skinny peasants. Now, in this world of largess and $1.00 cheeseburgers and designer bags at Target, skinny is the new in. Maybe because it means that you have something the peasants don't have - restraint. You don't have to hoard away food because you know that your next meal is just a trip to the organic grocery store away. Maybe rather than showing off wealth by fat, the new thing is to show off wealth by restraint.

Fat is an interesting thing, though, because unlike drinking or smoking, you can't just go cold turkey. I can't just say, "that's it, I'm throwing away all the food" and dump it all down the toilet. I can't avoid people who have food. Or places that have food. I can't get a whole new set of non-eating friends. I have to eat. At least three times a day. I'd die without food. Literally.

So what do I do? I have to learn to eat healthfully. To eat within my means and not justify another chocolate bar because I'm putting it on my mastercard.

And that's the hardest thing to do.

Small victory for the day - my husband brought back some waffle fries from chick-fil-a - I love those things. But I just ate a few and threw the rest away while I noshed on cottage cheese and pineapple. I did eat three hershey kisses afterwards, though. But I don't think they're as bad as waffle fries...

the day after christmas and I pass up discounted mint chocolate truffles at Target

I got up early this morning to go to Target and snag some discounts on wrapping paper, decorations, etc. I joined the hoardes of crazy women in the Christmas aisle and decided that no amount of discount was worth putting up with those crazy people, so I kept on walking. Right past the choxie mint truffles. I love chocolate. I love chocolate mint. It's splendid. I put a box in my basket. And then started thinking about it. And the fact that I already have way more chocolate than two people need in our kitchen right now.

So I put it back for someone else to get fat on. I'm thinking like a skinny girl now. Skinny girls don't go crazy on truffles. Even if they are chocolate mint.

Stats for today:
2 slices plain toast (white - too bad, I'm not about to throw out a perfectly good loaf of potato bread).
apple with peanut butter
diet coke
2 hershey kisses

peanut butter and jelly sandwich
5 crackers and cheese
apple pie

salad with grilled chicken
egg roll
2 hershey kisses

It's not quite new years...

but this madness really has got to stop.

I am 31 years old, have spent the past 10 years getting progressively fatter, and need it to stop. My life can not go on this way.

So I am going to lose it.

I've said it before, though, and then the foul mistress chocolate, and her cohort spaghetti come and get me.

But not this time. I'm getting too old. I know I'm not old in the official definition of the word. But I don't want to continue my life this way. I was a fat bride. And I'm a fat wife. And my husband loves me, but do I love me? Do I love myself by making myself take nexium because I'm fat so I get problems with heartburn? I just had surgery to remove a fibroid - which is caused by - yep, obesity.

I'm not disgustingly fat. Yet. But it's coming. And I need to stop it. It's never going to get easier to lose weight. It's only going to get harder as I get older.

So that's it. I'm losing it.

Goal: 50 pounds by Christmas of next year.

I weighed 244 at my last doctor appointment. I'd like to get down to about 160 or 170. That's where my body is its happiest. I'm going to get there in 18 months.

Here I go.