Fat Girl: Skinny Latte

Resolution: To Find Happiness Outside of Food

2011-01-01T23:43:00.000-08:00

I've given up soda as part of this new year's weight-loss goals. I am pretty convinced that soda and weight are inexplicably linked, at least for me. I wish it wasn't so. There's very little I love as much as drinking root beer with pizza. I'm now on Day 6 of no soda, and I'm taking it very much in the same vein as an addict - one day at a time. I can't think about the fact that I am trying to cut out soda forever. I can only think about the fact that I'm cutting out soda today. Today I woke up and chose not to drink soda. That's all I can think about.

But it's gotten me considering how much food is linked to happiness with me. Tonight we went to the movies. How on earth was I supposed to sit through a movie without a giant soda? As it was, I kind of cheated and had Hi-C, but it's not soda, and soda is what's verboten at the moment. At some point I might cut out all high fructose corn syrup, and I have been drinking mostly water the past 6 days, but for tonight it was a Hi-C.

I wonder what I'll do, for example, what to do when hubby and I go out to eat. Drink water? With Chinese food, for example? Ick! Nothing goes with General Tso's chicken quite like diet coke. Seriously? Water with pizza? Water with anything like that? Disgusting!

And it's not just soda. If I can't go to the Soup Plantation's all-you-can-eat buffet anymore, it's like my entire life is over. What's the point of living if I can't go to all-you-can-eat buffets? Why celebrate anything if it can't be over an enormous plate of food? What about when I'm upset and want to eat chocolate to smooth things over?

Why is so much of my life somehow linked to food? People celebrated achievements without food before, I'm certain of it. There are other people in the world right now who don't care about food either way. They don't get upset if they can't go to the Soup Plantation. They don't even know about the Soup Plantation.

That is just so foreign to me. But I want to get there. One day at a time, right? Yes, food should be pleasurable, and at some point I hope that I can enjoy food in moderation. But right now I can't. Right now I need to learn how to not get much emotional pleasure from food. I need to separate emotions from food. And then the pendulum can swing back to the beginning.

breakfast this morning

2010-12-29T11:04:00.000-08:00

So far today I had a special k protein shake, an apple, and some ginger tea with 1.5 sugars. I'm thinking about what to have for lunch in a little bit. Thinking of some brown rice and beans or something like that...

Dinner last night

2010-12-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

I didn't log what I had for dinner last night, and even though nobody's reading this, as part of my weight-loss, I want to log everything.

So yesterday afternoon before dinner I had 2 handfuls of almonds and a small piece of ham (was making dinner at the time).

For dinner I had 2 slices of ham leftover from Christmas, green beans, 4 mini red potatoes, and a bit of french bread. For dessert I had apples dipped in fruit dip (some kind of cheesy concoction). Then 2 more lindor truffles fell into my mouth.

Yesterday evening I had a little bit of chocolate milk.

All told, I ate about 2100 calories. Not great, but not bad. I also drank 5 glasses of pure water.

oops

2010-12-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

I was out in the kitchen making my peppermint mocha (skim milk, espresso, chocolate shavings, peppermint syrup, a little bit of whipped cream) and a lindor truffle popped into my mouth.

ooops.

Lunch

2010-12-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

So, it's now 2pm. I went for a walk through the woods - 1.6 miles of hilly terrain, 25 minutes.

For lunch I had a bowl of italian wedding soup - I love that stuff! A little bit of french bread. And a big glass of water.

I'm going to make myself a decaf mocha at home with skim milk in a little bit.

I'm embracing hunger.

Getting this blog going again

2010-12-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

So I'm getting this going again. It's officially "on". Why now? What's been going on with me that I'm finally getting my ass in gear again?

Well. I got pregnant and gained weight. Then I lost the baby at 21 weeks due to an infection, and still have some of the weight. That was 3 months ago.

Hubby has been waking me up for about a month, saying that I've stopped breathing. I guess it's sleep apnea. Last night I woke up gasping for air. This was super-scary. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow, but in the meantime, when I look at the things that cause sleep apnea, the number one factor that's within your control is weight.

If I had been looking for a wake-up sign from God, this one was it. That's it, I'm done with fat, it's on. Like, no kidding. I am seriously not up for waking up gasping for air every night, nor do I want to die in my sleep - I've got too much sh*t to do in life.

So. The stats.

This morning I weighed in at 252 pounds. This is very bad. My goal is to lose about 80 pounds, but that's going to have to be done in stages, as I want to get pregnant again soon. So the first goal is 30 pounds. I could do that even while pregnant - yes, I know it's bad to severely limit calories whilst pregnant, but many studies have shown that obese women can lose weight in the first trimester, and it's perfectly fine. I will be doing it under a doctor's supervision, and will stop if anything gets dodgy.

When I was 220 before, I was very healthy and happy with my weight. It wasn't perfect, but I felt fit. Plus I could fit into a size 18. That was when I lived in NY and was walking everywhere, so that was part of it. I think getting down to 220 will ease the worst of the sleep apnea, and get me back on a healthy path. Then I can deal with getting down to 170 after that. First things first. The first thing is that I don't want to wake up gasping for breath ever again, and getting to 220 will help that.

So. For breakfast this morning I had:
a Kellog's Special K protein shake (190 calories, 10 grams protein, 5 grams fiber).
an apple
gingerbread herbal tea with 2 sugars

Will keep posting updates.

Flax and swimming

2009-08-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying to do better with taking care of myself in all ways, not just with weight. I went to the dentist, have a doctor appointment next week, and got a great new haircut. This all makes me very happy :) I've been swimming in our town's lake every couple of days. I normally do four laps (eight lengths) of the lake, which is at least 50 yards across. My hubby guesses it as 80 yards. Usually I do a lame breast stroke, but I'm super proud of myself because yesterday I did three complete lengths without stopping of regular freestyle, kicking like crazy. Man, I was breathing heavy and my arms are super sore today. But it felt good.

I've also started putting flax in my smoothies because Dr. Oz said on Oprah that if there's one food you should add to your diet, it's flax. So I got a few kinds at Trader Joe's last week - milled with blueberries (which is what I add to my smoothies) and plain old milled, which I'm going to put into brownies or something like that. I have to say, it's pretty disgusting. But I like being able to have all those Omega 3's. It's good for my brain, and for the baby's, once I get preggars.

Here's my new favorite lunch, which I just had: pita, spread with hummus, toasted in the oven so it's - well - toasty. Then put on spinach, feta cheese and olives. Mmmmmm. Yummy and healthy.

Still trying to drink my 8 glasses of water each day, which also feels good.

Guess that's it for now.

Why is it I avoid blogging about this stuff?

2009-07-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

So it's been almost 6 weeks since I've blogged. Part of that can be reasonably be put down to general business - we've had two sets of houseguests, along with all the fun that goes into that, and summertime stuff has taken over. Which is nice.

What isn't nice is that I'm still hovering around 230. Sigh.

I heard something interesting on NPR yesterday. It was an interview with Michael Pollan, who wrote In Defense of Food, which is now on my amazon wishlist, but he said that it all boils down to just seven words...

Eat Food.

Not too much.

Mostly Plants.

His whole thing is that most of what's in our supermarkets is not actually food. It's chemically processed calories that don't actually fulfill you or give you much in the way of nutrition. It's got me noticing the amount of stuff I eat that's not actually food. I'm definitely getting better, but today, for example, I ate a hot dog. On a heavily processed white roll. I'm trying to do better with eating actual food.

So here are my measurement stats for now...(compared to late Februay)

Weight: then:239 now:230
Upper arms: 14 3/4 inches. now: 14.5 inches
Bust: 40 inches: now: 38.5 inches
Waist: 44.5 inches... now: 42 inches.
Hips: 50 1/2 inches...now: 48 3/4 inches
Upper thigh: 31 inches - now: 28.5 inches

So I guess it's not all just about the number on the scale... looks like I've lost about 8.5 inches overall. That gives me some inspiration to keep working out...

Thanks for listening. I'm a little discouraged right now, but feel better after these measurements.

On-and-off blogging

2009-05-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

So here's why I've been incommunicado lately...

On May 7 I turned 33, which is what it is, but that day I tore a tendon in my shoulder - comes from years of carrying around really heavy bookbags, which were then replaced by really heavy computer bags.

So anyway, I wound up in the ER on all kinds of fun drugs for a week. Which made it impossible to string together words to make a sentence, let alone a blog entry.

But then I stepped on the scale and had gained back like five pounds. I was hovering dangerously near 240 again. I started freaking out and just wanted to go into hiding. But I was doing so good, I thought. How did this happen? Then the hubby nicely said "I bet it's because you haven't exercised all week, and as soon as you do, it'll start coming back off..." and so I ignored the scale for a few days and got back to my normal workout schedule.

During all of this, I just really wanted to run away. The idea of blogging about my failure was disheartening, to say the least. And so the blog went un-updated. Last week I finally started to catch up and get back on schedule, and this weekend I'm updating all my blogs, and getting my internet life back together.

So I just went into the bathroom and weigh 235. Fully dressed, at the end of the day (normally I go by my weight in the morning). That's hopeful.

My dad and stepmom are coming to visit in about a month. I'd like to set a goal of losing five pounds before their visit. If I do this, I will be down about fifteen pounds from the last time my dad saw me, and I'd really like that. My dad doesn't bring up as many weight issues for me as my mom, but I know he worries about me. He was always fairly thin - with a bit of a beer belly - but he did love cheeseburgers and beer (hence the aforementioned belly). It caught up to him in 2004 when he wound up having a triple bypass. Since then he's become hyperaware of his health, and mine. But not in a pushy way. More in a loving way. So it would make me very happy to be able to show him that I'm on track and losing weight. Five pounds in a month is eminently do-able. I could go crazy and shoot for ten, but let me get the five off first. Five would put me below 230. When I reach 220 I can pull out my NYC clothes. Man, that will be quite the day.

I am going to make a real effort to not run away from blogging when I gain weight, as I will inevitably do. It's during those times that I need to blog and get back on track more than ever.

One thing I've started doing this week is packing my lunch. I work from home three days a week, but the other two I am either traveling, or working in an office. Those two days tend to be kind of "special" since I get to go be sociable and lead a normal work-day existence, so I never think about bringing lunch, and usually buy breakfast on the road, too. But I'm all about saving money these days - my hubby and I have a couple of trips we really want to do before we get pregnant, including India - so we're not eating out, and putting that money towards India. It's amazing how good I feel. I've even started making my own iced mochas, which look almost as good as the ones from Starbucks.

So that's been the little change I've made this week. And if I count $80 on lunches in a month, and $120 on our Date Nite Dinners Out, that's $200 a month on processed oversized portions that I'm not getting. Plus the (easily) $120 on iced mochas I've stopped buying. Gosh, that's practically a car payment.

Anyway, that's what's up with me and my weight journey this past week.

watered down orange soda

2009-05-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

Here's something I've started doing lately - watering down my soda with san pelligrino. I've actually started developing a taste for watery orange soda. Seriously, unwatered down orange soda is much too strong!

I'm turning 33 on Thursday and this bums me out. Because I'm running out of time to get healthy. I spent most of my 20's fat. I don't want to spend my 30's fat, too. So I'm more motivated than ever to lose the 60 pounds I have remaining to lose. I want to get them off by my 34th birthday. Except I might get pregnant this year, so I might not be able to make that. Sigh. By 35. Down to about 170 by age 35. That, I can do. That way I can spend only half of my 30's fat and/or pregnant.

And who knows...maybe getting pregnant will motivate me even more. If I know that the little being inside of me is eating everything I'm eating, I'm not going to give it a ton of bad food. I might wind up getting healthier while pregnant.

I was 231 this morning. I can't wait to get back down to 220, which is what I weighed when I lived in NYC. Then I can get out my NYC clothes. Which will hold me over till I get down to 200 or so, and after that I just will need to buy more clothes, because I don't still have any from that far back.

Anyway, it's nice to daydream about clothes. I prefer reading vogue and daydreaming about wonderful clothing to eating chocolate. Must remember that when I want a chocolate chip cookie.

Liars

2009-04-30T22:38:00.000-07:00

Here's something I'm learning...anybody who tells you that you can lose weight without being hungry is lying. Totally lying. If you're going to lose weight, you're going to be hungry sometimes. It's just how it is. Deal with it.

So say I.

(I'm freaking hungry right now, but it's already almost 11 and I refuse to eat this close to bedtime. And I've had about 2200 calories already today).

On the fairness of life (aka, yeah, it's not fair that I can't eat everything I want)

2009-04-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

I had this little revelation in the grocery store yesterday. Those of you in the neighborhood of a Trade Joe's will be familiar with all the yummy chocolates they have up above the frozen bins. Chocolate covered espresso beans, chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate covered you-name-its. So I was looking at them all, wondering whether I wanted to get any, and eventually decided that, no, my life was complete enough as it was without a huge container of malted milk balls around.

But in coming to that conclusion, I was thinking how patently unfair it is. It's unfair that my husband can eat an entire pizza and not gain an ounce. It's unfair that if I so much as look at a piece of cake I gain two pounds. It's unfair that every night my stomach grumbles as I go to sleep.

The thing is, though, who said it was going to be fair? I'm sure all of the millions and billions of starving people in the world tonight probably think it's pretty unfair that they're starving and I'm not. Where did I get this idea that life has to be fair? It's not, and once you can come to grips with that, I think you're better off in the long run.

So I'm going to try to stop feeling sorry for myself, and hanging on to ideas of just how wrong and sad it is, and learn to eat within my means, treat myself regularly, and be healthy; however that looks for me. And I'm going to stop thinking that I'm somehow owed the ability to eat and metabolize chocolate at the same rate as my husband, or a fifteen year old. I am not owed that, and once I get over that, I think I'll be headed in the right direction.

Check in

2009-04-23T18:02:00.001-07:00

Ok, I didn't do a big check-in in a while. So here is how it's going.

Last time - about 6 weeks ago, vs now.

Weight: 239/233
Upper arms: 14 3/4 inches. now: Same
Bust: 40 inches: now: 39 inches
Waist: 44.5 inches... now: 43.5 inches.
Hips: 50 1/2 inches...now: 50 inches
Upper thigh: 31 inches - now: 30.25 inches

Catching up

2009-04-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I blogged, which I blame on family visits, general computer laziness, and other assorted random lame reasons.

Stat-wise I'm down almost 12 pounds from where I was 6 weeks ago. I'm at a conference this week and went swimming in the hotel tonight and felt all kinds of muscles in my legs that weren't so obvious a month ago. Which feels nice.

I've stopped eating cereal, and I always go to bed hungry these days, but I figure it won't kill me to sleep on an empty stomach.

Eventually I'll get brave enough to post some before and during pictures here so that my progress can be visually tracked, but for now, I'm still too shy. :)

So here's what I've been thinking about lately. I've been practicing thrift at stores and thinking that the same feelings that make me feel like I have to own something now, to the point that I'd charge it on a card, are the feelings that also make me eat a cookie I don't need. After all, what is a binge but a food-charge - at least in my head, it's a bargain - ie, if I eat this now, I'll pay it off later by not eating dinner. But then I still eat dinner because you have to eat dinner, and so I get all kinds of interest charges and fees in the form of 70 extra pounds. Which seemed insurmountable a month ago, really, but now I'm down 11 of those, it seems much more manageable.

Now that I am practicing thrift at Target (I really am not going to die if I don't get a new set of dishes, no matter how much I love them, and how perfect they would be to eat on outside on the deck....and if they are that perfect, I can budget for them and get them next week) I am also learning how to budget and be thrifty with my calories. I don't want to waste calories on "junk" that doesn't provide me with good nutrients or something healthy, though a certain amount of "treats" are necessary, both with food, and a trip to Target.

If I can budget and plan for a new set of dishes, I can also budget and plan for some mini-eggs, or ice cream. I don't have to go without completely. Though there are some things I do want to go without because it's not worth it to me - cereal as an example. I'd rather budget for ice cream than rice krispies, so that's what I do.

I'm also having an easier time admitting that this is something I'm going to have to deal with for my entire life, and that it's an addiction like cigarettes or alcohol, and it's always going to be there. I have a really hard time with that. I don't like not being in charge or in control. But there is power in facing something, accepting it, and dealing with it rather than just denying it. And I'm learning how to do that. It's still hard, and I'm not there yet, but I'm closer than I have been in a long time.

learning new habits

2009-03-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

So it was two weeks ago that I got really sick and went "off" food for three or four days. I have managed to change my habits quite a bit since then. I don't really ever eat more than 1800-2000 calories a day, which is a big change since I used to easily consume 2500. Most of it seems to come down to just snacking less. Also, I don't eat after dinner at all, and have gotten used to being hungry at bedtime. I wonder whether I have turned some sort of corner when it comes to my diet. I wonder whether I've reached some sort of turning point. I'm hoping so.

One thing I've kind of given up is cereal. It takes so much cereal to fill me up - a serving size makes me laugh. So that's just about gone from my diet. And other stuff I'm just eating less of. Plus I've been eating a LOT of soup. And I'm going to stick to the non-diet sodas even after lent. Artificial sweeteners are so bad for you, and here I was all worried that I'd gain weight if I drank regular coke, but I'm losing it. It's very strange, but it really seems true that artificial sweeteners actually make your sweet tooth stronger. I really don't get chocolate cravings any longer. I drink one or two small regular sodas each day - usually just one - and that does me for sugar. I've also been drinking a lot of water.

We'll see how it goes - I'm cautiously optimistic. Stats tomorrow.

Stats

2009-03-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

So I weighed a solid 235-236 this morning. Down about 7 lbs from where I started. Am within ten pounds of the weight I was when I lived in NYC. Which means I can break out the NYC pants that don't fit anymore. That will be exciting. Am getting used to being hungry. Will post measurements each month, I guess, so none today.

It feels nice to not be afraid of the scale.

Long time no blog

2009-03-19T21:48:00.001-07:00

So I've been really sick, which is my excuse. This weekend I wound up in the hospital with critical dehydration, that's how much I was throwing up. Though I think it was a message from God to chill out and stop stressing. Three weeks ago I had my mom visiting, and then I had two crazy weeks with lots of travel, and I think I caught a stomach bug and really took it hard because my system was vulnerable. Sooo....

So I got down to about 235 after this whole sick thing. And it's just really interesting because even though I'm doing better now, I kind of got used to not wanting to eat. I'm hoping maybe I can make a habit out of this, and have an upside from the sick thing.

It's really weird for me. I'm eating half a cookie and tossing the other half. I'm not filling my cereal bowl. I'm not finishing dinner. It's really strange for me. But I'm not going to complain. If I can get in the habit of not eating, and even when I'm back to being hungry again, knowing that I'm not going to die if I don't eat - well, maybe that will make my sickness worth it...

Also, I'm excited to be comfortably below 240 now. I'm going to a conference in almost exactly a month - I'm hoping I can get down to 225 as a deadline. Because that was what I weighed in New York, and I could dig out my NYC clothes then. Here's hoping hungrily...

One day at a time...

2009-03-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

So I had a long travel day on Wednesday. Once every two or three weeks I find myself passing the Auntie Anne's pretzel stand in the Oakland airport both in the morning, and the afternoon. I have been known to give in both times of day. I have never passed it by both morning and afternoon without getting at least one greasy pretzel. But I did on Wednesday, and I was super proud. Ok, so I celebrated with a hot fudge sundae at Carrows that night, but I bet that hot fudge sundae still had fewer calories than the pretzel, and I enjoyed it more.

I wound up doing something really wonky to my neck - I think I fell asleep on the plan in a weird way, and it's been hurting me ever since. Wed and Thurs it was really painful. Yesterday less so. And today it's pretty much gone. But I hadn't worked out since Tuesday, though I just did an abysmal half hour of half-hearted elliptical.

I guess that's it. A little scared to weigh myself tomorrow. I'm PMSing. Sigh.

Weekly Check In

2009-03-01T19:41:00.001-08:00

So I'm going to start being religious about posting my stats each week, and I hope that the blogger community can help me keep on the schedule.

So this morning I weighed a solid 239.
My measurements... (because my gym-owning friend insists that measurements are a better way to keep track of progress than weight).
Upper arms: 14 and 3/4 inches
Bust: 40 inches
Waist: 44 1/2 inches
Hips: 50 1/2 inches
Upper thigh: 31 inches

The Rules of Weight Gain I have been Living By

2009-02-28T14:54:00.000-08:00

I'm sure there are more than this list that I don't even know about yet, but here are some of the rules I have been living by that have led to my current weight, which is hovering somewhere near 239 (the needle is right in the middle between 239 and 240).

1) If you drink diet coke, it doesn't matter what else you eat because the diet coke negates any other calories.
I mean, duh, right? Of course, if you're drinking something without any calories, of COURSE it means that the ice cream you're having with it will be impacted, right?

2) Calories on special occasions don't count.
This could be something that could be lived with, if I didn't count everything as a special occasion. Not just vacations and holidays. I count going to a new grocery store as a special occasion. Or PMS. Or picnics. Or if I go to a new mall. Or if I'm at someone's house. Or if I get an oil change. Or if I get a car wash. Or if it's payday. And on and on... Every day is a special occasion in my world! Yipppeeee! It's GREAT to be me with all my specialness. Sigh.

3) Working out for 45 minutes totally negates everything I've eaten all day.
I mean, come on, if I'm gonna sweat that much, it has to mean that I can eat whatever I want, right?

4) I have the metabolism of a 13 year old.
When really I'm almost 33 and didn't even have that metabolism when I was 13.

5) I don't have a problem.
I think this is the biggest one. I went to a couple of OA meetings a few years ago and was really pissed off at everyone in the room. They all had problems, I thought, but not me. I was healthy and I just ate too much chocolate. Admitting that I had an addiction that I needed help managing? Admitting that I was out of control? Sheesh, not me. No way. No how. They all were the ones with the problems, but not me. They were just weak. They were giving control away. Not me. I'm Miss In Control. Nobody tells me I don't have control over something. It's still really hard for me to admit that I have a problem. I want to simplify it. "I just eat too much. I could stop whenever I wanted..." I sound just like an alcoholic with that kind of thinking.

I'm not to the point yet where I can admit that I have an addiction that will be with me forever and I will always need to manage. But I guess I'm getting closer.

To be filed in the Small Victories folder - yesterday my entire outfit was from the Gap, which means that I fit into their clothes. I'm holding out to go into Express. Maybe this year? Who knows. I haven't been in Express since I was in college. I don't even know if I'd like their clothes anymore, but I can't wait to have the option...

A weird workout thing I've noticed

2009-02-24T22:38:00.001-08:00

So here's something weird that I have noticed in the past when I lost weight, and am also noticing now... when I work out all the time, I don't lose weight so much, but then if I skip a couple of workouts, I wind up losing a pound or two. I have no idea why this works this way, but I have a couple of theories.

First, when I work out a lot, I eat more. When I don't do a workout, I'm much more watchful with what I eat because I know I'm not working out and can't justify extra cookies (which I can't anyway - it's all a weird head game). When I do work out, I'm all "yeah, well, I worked out for 45 minutes today, so let's break out the M&M's..."

I guess I wind up eating more calories than I burned off with my weird thinking. A friend of mine says that weight loss is 75% nutrition and 25% exercise. I don't know what to think. I eat a ton more when I work out and I seem to lose more weight when I don't do crazy workouts.

So I guess I still need to figure it out and see what works. It's just a strange thing to notice.

My mom is visiting and I'm surviving. I did break into the ice cream yesterday, and downed about 100 animal crackers today, but I'm still doing ok, I guess. I need to get over this whole stress eating thing.

Anyway, that's the update. I was 239 this morning. Yay for me, I guess.

Measuring yourself with scales

2009-02-19T21:02:00.001-08:00

I had a long talk with my best guy buddy in the UK today, and we got on the subject of weight. He owns a women's gym, so is particularly interested in/curious about my struggle with weight. Professionally as well as in the friend role.

He said it was funny because for the first four years he knew me - when I was living in London and New York, he didn't think I was sensitive about my weight, and I didn't seem like a big girl. Granted, I was about 30 pounds lighter then, mostly because I walked everywhere. He said it was only when I moved to Middle America, and now LA, that he saw that I was sensitive about it.

I was thinking about it recently anyway, because I really miss who I was in London. I was always doing new things and said "yes" to everything that came my way. I was trying to think about why I don't do that anymore, and here's what I've come up with, in part...

In the UK, and Europe, and most of the rest of the world, I guess, there is a Stereotypical American which generally figures something like this - they're fat, wear bad clothes, have fanny packs, the men wear shorts with their dark socks pulled up to their knees, and white sneakers. And they're always always always fat. So when I was in the UK, I was kind of like, "Well, I'm supposed to be fat, I'm American, it's what people expect of me, so I'm not going to worry about it because it's just the way it's supposed to be and I'm not nearly as bad as I could be, so I'm already a step or two ahead."

But here I don't have that measurement to reassure me. I can't play the American who's a notch above the sterotype. So I revert back to being insecure and covering myself up and not going to the belly dancing class I really want to go to.

It was funny because earlier in the conversation he told me that I should start using a measuring tape to track progress rather than a scale, especially if I'm exercising a lot. Then during this part he said, "it's funny because you're measuring yourself on some scale that exists in your head, but isn't really real. It's just a made up scale." And I was like, "man, I've got to stop using scales for everything."

So I don't know. I still don't think I'm going to go to a belly dancing class until about 20 pounds from now, but I should start finding other things to base my judgments of myself on, I guess. It was an interesting thing to think about, anyway.

Real Pushups

2009-02-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

Just for fun I decided to see whether I could do "real" pushups tonight. You know, the way they're supposed to be. No knees, or anything. I don't know when the last time I did a real pushup was. I do them with my knees a fair amount - I try to do 15-20 at a time three times a week. But probably the last time I did one with no knees was in college. Well, I did five of them tonight. Five. Real. Pushups. I'm so giddy. I had to run out and tell the hubby, who was down in the driveway shoveling snow. Hooray for getting stronger!

I also shoveled another hour and a half today. I wrote on my twitter (follow me!) that I indulged in chicken strips for lunch. Weeeelll. I know I'm not supposed to think of eating crappy food as a treat to reward myself with after shoveling. I should think of bubblebaths to do that (which I did as well, thank you). But you know what? I've been snowed in for a week and haven't had any fast food during that time, and today we were able to get the car out and into town, and my hubby got these chicken strips at the hot deli of the grocery store, and they smelled so good and greasy, and so sue me, I thought of it as a reward.

Bad thinking, I guess, but whatever. Rome wasn't built in a day. Someday I will think of strawberries as a treat/reward but not yet. Chicken strips. Sorry.

Mindful Chocolate-chip cookie eating

2009-02-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

I'm still snowed in, in our mountains above LA. Which is giving me a really bad case of the munchies. The one thing that I take consolation is that because we haven't been able to go anywhere, at least I am munching on "healthy" foods that I probably made from scratch myself. Point is, I'm not stopping at Jack in the Box for an Oreo Cookie shake. I shoveled snow for nearly two hours today, and when I came back in, cold in my bones, I wanted a chocolate chip cookie. I really wanted a chocolate chip cookie. We had no chocolate chip cookies, so I baked some. With ingredients I can pronounce. Flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, and such. And I licked the bowl. And it was yummy. And I don't feel guilty because I made a conscious choice to eat chocolate chip cookies.

I think that's a big part of my problem. I'm just not mindful. This goes way beyond eating, but eating is a physical manifestation of it. I believe that my body always knows what it wants and needs. I just don't take the time to listen to it. So I'm kind of getting into the whole Mindful Eating thing. If you google Mindful Eating you come up with all sorts of links. The best one I've found so far is The Center For Mindful Eating. I'm still going through it all, but there are lots of links and meditations and ways to become aware of the needs of the body - when you're really truly hungry, and the food your body really truly craves. That's the whole point. Diets don't work, because you're only depriving yourself of food while on the diet, and not really learning new ways of eating so that you don't get big again after the diet ends.

So I am trying to be slower and more deliberate in my actions, having gratitude for everything, appreciating the moment, all that good stuff. And that goes for food, too.

Weird Week (and back down nearly 2 pounds)

2009-02-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

I was back down to just over 241 this morning. Back down to that. Huh. That's an oxymoron if ever I heard one. Whatever. Baby steps.

I had travel this past week, which meant that my diet went completely out of whack. Awful airport food, Chinese food delivery to the hotel, Auntie Anne's pretzels...you name it, I ate it. That said, I did get manage to complete 4 workouts of 45 minutes each, and do yoga twice this week. So I'm pretty proud of that.

And this morning I had lost those 2 pounds from last week, so it must have been water or something.
--
So my mother is coming to visit me next week and I'm freaking out. I have a really weird relationship with my mother, and it's related to food, so somewhat relevant to this blog. I am still trying to figure it all out - the relationship with food and my mom - but it's some kind of complicated mess that includes the following:

-my mom doesn't like that I'm fat - I think she takes it as a personal affront. However, she doesn't come out and say it, like a normal mean person would. She says stuff like, "I wish I could buy you nice clothes for your birthday, but I don't know how the sizes at Lane Bryant work."

- my mom sends me packages with tastykakes and chocolate. When I ask her why she sends these things when she knows I am trying to lose weight, she says "well, I figure if you spread it out and just eat one a week, it's not that bad." That's. The. Whole. Point. If I could do that, I wouldn't be fat. That one really makes me mad. You don't give a six pack of beer to an alcoholic and tell them they should make it last a month.

- my mom says she thinks it's her fault that I'm fat because she didn't love me enough and wasn't a good mother. This enrages me because yes, it is her fault in a way. But I hate that she's so self-centered that she thinks it's all about her. I hate making it all about her. Especially when she then sends me chocolate and tastykakes.

- my mom has really weird eating habits. She's like a camel. She won't eat for two days, and then she'll go to an all you can eat buffet and "get her money's worth". So I never really learned good eating habits from her. We ate a lot of processed junk, frozen dinners, etc. Went to Ponderosa to the buffet. Lots of mayonnaise. Never really any good homecooked meals from scratch that I make now. Salad was a chunk of iceberg lettuce, some carrots, and a cup of French dressing. Not a lot of flavor. No real enjoyment of good food, which is something I'd like to both learn myself, and teach my kids. It's one thing to sit down for a long dinner of lovely food, enjoying the colors and tastes, and really enjoy that food. It's quite another to eat a frozen Swanson turkey dinner in five minutes flat with the tv on, which is what we did when I was a kid.

- my mom, being a camel, didn't let me eat breakfast, which I still think is weird. I was a skater when I was a kid - started roller skating at 3 and switched to ice at 9. So we'd spend a lot of time at rinks. People at rinks usually bring food. So there is always some sort of "potluck" at practice sessions. When we'd go to the rink on summer mornings, my mom wouldn't let me eat breakfast first because there would be food at the rink. To start with, the rink was an hour away, and I get carsick on an empty stomach - still do. Second, the food that was there was macaroni salad, cookies, cakes, hot dogs, and general rink food. She'd say "well, just eat a little of each thing" Again, I bring up the alcoholic thing.

There's a lot more stuff like that - weird examples and such - but I'm getting rather bored writing it. I need to figure this all out so I can learn myself, but also so I can teach my kid better habits than I learned from my mom.

Thus, I am quite nervous about my mom's visit.

This is why I hate weighing myself

2009-02-08T05:10:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it said I gained 2 pounds. 2 freaking pounds. I have been eating a little more than usual lately, but I've also been working out an extra 15 minutes each day, for 45 minutes five times a week. And it's HARD, too. I'm not just walking at 2 miles an hour on the treadmill or something. I get my heart up to like 150 bpm. Plus I started doing the yoga stuff for strength, and that gets me breathing hard, too.

This sucks.

Ok, so there were some brownies in my life this week. I guess I just can't have any brownies ever. How come some people (like my skinny hubby) can eat brownies all the time? And never gain a pound?

Ok, wake up call, whatever. I will do better this week. More carrots less brownies. Sigh.

So what's up with my fear of weighing myself?

2009-02-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

I am still afraid to weigh myself. I've been drinking lots of water, working out a lot, doing yoga, not eating tons of sugar, not eating late at night - all the things Oprah says you're supposed to do. But I'm still afraid to weigh myself. Why? Really, I tell myself all the time that weight is just a number, and my whole goal is to get healthy, and I should go by how my jeans fit and what size I am and not just the scale. But then I freak out when it's time to weigh myself and get all scared. Why?

I have a couple of theories of my own personal reasons.

The first is that if I weigh myself and the number is too high, or hasn't changed despite my better habits, I'll get all discouraged and wonder what the point of it all is. Then I'll eat a twinkie and feel like crap all over again.

I guess that's probably the main reason. But in that moment of weighing myself, so many thoughts go through my head that are unpleasant. Like as I'm taking my clothes off it's, "man, I hope my husband doesn't come in and see this beached whale" (like he doesn't see me naked on a regular basis anyway. Heck, he likes it! Weird.). Then as I'm stepping on it's, "Is the scale in the right place? Last time I put it by this piece of tile and the number seemed to be better. Maybe if I stand with my weight more on my right or left foot it will make a difference?" And then as the number is computing it's "pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don't be over 240. Please." And then if it's 239 it's "Oh, yay, I'll never be over 240 again!" Or if it's 240 it's "I'll never get back to my college weight of 160 again. I suck. I'm a whale. This sucks." Then I have to put my clothes back on, shamefully, all the while thinking of excuses. Like, "well, my hair was wet. That has to add a pound."

My heart rate races, my palms sweat, and the whole thing is just really uncomfortable. So why do I put myself through it?

I need to get over that whole thing. It's just a measure. It's like a cup of milk. I don't have all these opinions about a cup of milk. A cup of milk is a cup of milk. It's 8 fluid ounces. I don't judge or evaluate the size of a cup of milk. It's a snapshot. A momentary measurement of what I weigh right this second. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yeah, well, I'm not going to weigh myself this morning because I already ate breakfast. Maybe tomorrow I'll be brave enough to step on the scale.

Stuff

2009-02-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it's been a while since I've blogged, but that doesn't necessarily mean I've fallen off the wagon. Here are some things I'm noticing.

1) I get really off track when I travel. I was at a conference in Denver last week and I ate burger king like crazy. It's like whenever I go off my normal routine, I just get totally crappy with food. And now my skin is paying for it, too. Ick.

2) I feel better when I'm not stuffed. I've noticed that I actually don't want to eat a ton of food during the day because it makes me sluggish. Now this doesn't mean that I always listen to my body, but it's interesting that my body really doesn't want a lot of heavy food.

3) It's not much harder to add an additional 15 minutes of working out to my schedule. Before I'd been doing 30 minutes four or five times a week, but then I read that really 30 minutes is good to maintain weight, but to lose it you really have to do at least 45 minutes. I had considered upping it gradually, but last week, while watching the Superstars of Dance finale, I just went crazy on the elliptical for 45 minutes, and it really wasn't that difficult. In this week I have now done five 45 minute workouts, which is an additional 75 minutes of working out over what I would have done if my sessions were 30 minutes.

I don't have any stats because I'm too afraid to get on the scale. But my jeans fit well (the size 20 ones from the Gap, not the 22 from Lane Bryant, which I've now donated to goodwill) and I'm feeling good. Also, another benefit is that lately I've been doing a lot of one-day trips up to San Francisco, which require me getting up very early in the morning. To try to make this less painful, I'm getting on a schedule where I wake up at 6 each morning. During the three hours in between waking up and starting work, I have started doing yoga videos.

I'm also cutting way back on my diet coke and drinking a lot of water. I'm really liking the Archer Farms flavored water, but even that is beginning to be a bit strong for my newly formed tastebuds which are craving plain water and not too much flavor.

So that's where things stand right now. Maybe next week I'll have stats.

Discouragement

2009-01-11T11:49:00.000-08:00

I had been doing so good, I thought. I had lost two pounds and was working out five days a week, etc. And then today I weigh myself and I gained a pound back. I'm really hoping it's just water/bloating and I'm going to drink more water today. And I'm going to have to start weighing myself every day, I think. I know they say that if you weigh yourself every day you can get discouraged because you don't see results that quickly, but if I don't weigh myself every day, it sneaks up on me. So I'm going to have to just force myself to weigh myself every morning.

I have been working out five days a week - 35-40 minutes at a pop on the elliptical - but I also got a resistance band on Friday and need to start doing that, too. Plus I can travel with that a lot more easily.

I made a "somewhat-healthy diner" breakfast this morning. Fried egg-whites, whole wheat toast, an apple and some fried lean ham. The kitchen smells like Denny's. That's nice.
----
I had a little moment the other day. I was watching youtube videos and somehow saw Brian Boitano (I love the south park movie-"What would Brian Boitano do?") and I thought about how when I was little I ice skated-started when I was 3 and continued for nearly 10 years - and I just wanted to cry at what my body has become. A few months ago, a friend, who is pretty big, said something about how us "big girls" have to stick together, and I was like, "but I'm not big. You're big. I'm an athlete!" and I realized just how much I have been fooling myself. My body is ginormous. I have to get real about that first, before anything is going to change. As long as I'm living in a fantasy world, I'm never going to be able to lose this weight.

The church of Oprah

2009-01-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

When Liz Lemon on 30 Rock was asked about her religion, she replied, "I mostly just do what Oprah tells me." I've never been a huge Oprah watcher - I think I've probably watched less than five full episodes in my entire life, but I do get her magazine, and with all the hullabaloo about her weight recently, I had to watch her kickoff to Best Life Week today.

Bob Greene, her famous trainer, is hosting a webcast next week where he's going to give his specifics on getting back in shape. To get started for that, he gave five questions to ask ourselves to get to the heart of what it is we really want, including things like, "Why did I fail at losing weight before?" "Why do I want to lose weight?" and "what would really make me happy?"

So I was thinking about my life, and the things that I would like to have it really make me happy. I want to listen to more of my music. We always listen to J's music, or sports on the tv. I want to listen to mine, even if he thinks it's silly. I want to listen to Marketplace on NPR every day. I want to go to museums. If I'm really honest, I'm tired of always doing everything for everybody else. I clean the cat litter, I make the meals, I keep the house clean, I-ahem-work and make our money, and I'm tired of it. I don't want to do it all the time. I don't mind doing it some of the time. But not all of the time.

Sheesh, that all just came spilling out, didn't it?

So, yeah, that's what I want.

I want to travel and have friends and go back to doing interesting things like I did when I was in London and was pretty healthy. I want to sing and play instruments more. I want to not be tired.

I lost weight in the past and then gained it back because... hmmm... I was super healthy when I was 20, and then it just seemed to get boring. I got tired of the gym. And I have always turned to food for comfort. When I was 20 I could do that because my metabolism was better. I can't do that anymore.

And I want to lose weight to... have more confidence in myself. I'm tired of hiding and not doing what I want to do in life (take belly dancing classes, start businesses, run) because people will think I'm fat.

And the great clothes wouldn't be bad either.

Oprah, chocolate, stress and etc

2009-01-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about weight a lot because of Oprah's recent confessions about her weight. Oprah is so freaking open and vulnerable, it really makes me feel awful because I wish I was that way, too.

I was getting annoyed with my hubby today (we were having a stressful time trying to get a stray cat, who we had brought in overnight to recover after we got him "fixed" yesterday to leave and go back outside, and I didn't think he was handling it properly and was really impatient. Then I had to clean up the bathroom, where the cat had been staying, and was getting even more annoyed. Then I go out to ask him something, and what do I do? Eat four hershey kisses. Why? Was I craving chocolate? Not particularly. Was I hungry? Not really. Was I bored? Yeah. Was I stressed out? Yes.

So I'm a stress eater. But it's so ingrained in me. "Comfort food" is more than just warm shepherd's pie. It's anything. It's Doritos. It's cereal. Chocolate. Little Debbie's brownies.

I gotta figure out other healthy things to do so I don't grab the damn hershey kisses all the time. Still, four isn't that bad. They have 25 calories each. So that was 100 calories of stress reduction.

Maybe I could rock out on guitar hero instead. But it takes so loooong to load and set up. Something faster. I'll have to think.

All in all, it wasn't that bad today. I had:

cereal (quaker oatmeal squares - cold, but loads of fiber)
chicken salad sandwich
cole slaw
small amount of strawberry shortcake

teriyaki chicken, rice and veggies

four pieces of chocolate
cereal
a few doritos

And I worked out for 35 minutes on the elliptical machine. Not too shabby, so say I.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

Funny how I keep coming back to this blog. Ok, so I did go down a size since last year. I can now fit into size 20 jeans at the gap, whereas last year I was wearing size 22 from Lane Bryant. So that's at least a step in the right direction, right?

But if my Grand Life Plan works out the way I want it to, this will be the last year that I'm not either pregnant or have a baby (we want to get pregnant in 2010). So I need to start thinking about this whole Being Healthy thing in a new way. It's not just about me anymore. It's about being Healthy for the little thing that's going to grow inside of me. And it's really selfish for me to want to eat a twinkie and deprive Baby of a healthy mom. I mean, duh.

I also realize that I feel so much better when I drink lots of water and don't eat a ton of sugar (she says, having just eaten a Little Debbie's Christmas Cake - listen, it's not going anywhere till I eat it and I might as well not have it hanging around until February, right?).

I've been bored on the elliptical lately, so I've taken to shoveling snow as a workout. Man, I'm working muscles I never knew I had. Plus the upside is that our deck is getting steadily cleared of snow. Bonus! It's nice to see our huge deck now, and not see it all covered in two feet of snow.

I'd been doing pretty good on the lowering-my-sugar thing, but then I kind of backslid just now. But I have shoveled snow for 45 minutes today during my lunch hour, so maybe if I do it again tonight - or do the elliptical or something to work off that dang Christmas tree cake thing (it was so yummy though - almost worth it).

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. For the first year in a while last year I ended the year lower in weight than I had been when the year started, so rather than be upset that I didn't lose the weight I wanted to, I'm going to take that momentum and use it this year...

It's a process, huh?

2008-08-25T21:58:00.000-07:00

You get on the bus, you get off the bus. You get on the wagon, you fall off the wagon. Where is this wagon, anyway?

So a lot has happened since my last blog post. For one, I started a twitter account where I will (hopefully) post daily stats of my eating and exercising and weightloss. I hope this will help keep me accountable on a daily basis. Maybe even more often than daily. Maybe whenever I put something in my mouth, it goes on twitter.

I got an elliptical with my tax refund. Yay for tax refunds. It rocks, and I've been using it daily. My butt is showing a decided bit of newfound height. I went down a size, almost. I fit into size 20 jeans now. Which means I can go back to getting jeans at Old Navy and don't have to go to Lane Bryant which just makes me feel disgusting.

And the biggest news is I've started running again. I will post more often on my love of running and what it means to me. But suffice it to say, for now, that it is making me very very happy.

I'm getting there. Slowly but surely.

An update

2008-04-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

So I'm traveling for work this week, but I'm staying in a hotel that has a decent fitness center and have made use of it the past two nights. I'm still on a quest for an elliptical machine. And I'm still trying to be zen about being hungry.

But I ogled Vogue last night, which gave me inspiration. It's a process. It's a process.

Finding a used elliptical

2008-04-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

after my little "i make myself sick" breakdown of last week I went down to the fitness center in my hotel and worked out on the elliptical machine, AND went swimming. It was fun, and reminded me that I'm not all gross.

Now I'm trying to find a used elliptical. I've gotta figure something out for working out up here on the mountain. There are no gyms. I have found a school with a treadmill. Perhaps that will have to do until I can get an elliptical.

So anyway, that's the story here. Not much else to report. It is how it is.

Falling off the wagon (aka, I make myself sick sometimes)

2008-03-27T20:17:00.000-07:00

Not that I've really been on the wagon that much lately. I guess I don't really know what it would mean to be "on" the wagon. Stop at 1500 calories a day? Who knows. All I know is that when I went to the doctors last week I was 248, which is dangerously close to 250, which is dangerously disgusting.

So what do I do? Eat, of course. Have I mentioned how sick I make myself?

I'm at a library conference in Minneapolis. Yesterday I ordered room service because I was completely knackered from a long day of driving and flying and waking up at 4am. So I ate room service food.

Today I had pizza and french fries. I went out to walgreens this evening and bought a protein bar and strawberry milk, which I didn't finish, thank goodness, but I still feel really sick.

Plus I've been getting headaches a lot. This is kind of personal, but so is this whole blog. About 3 years ago I experienced horrible headaches when I - ahem - had an orgasm. Like my head was going to explode. I went to the doctor, and they said that probably I had high blood pressure, and that was that. My blood pressure is good though - 120 over 70. I was just at the doc last week. So no high blood pressure. When they happened three weeks ago, it was when I wasn't working out so much, and I haven't been working out so much lately, so I wonder if it's related. Eventually they went away, and I'm hoping that if I start working out seriously again, they'll go away.

I have a physical in about 2 months. I hope I can lose about 15 pounds in 2 months. I should be able to do this. We are going to Italy in September. Can I lose 40 pounds by then? God, I hope so.

I have to do this. I have to start tonight. I have to keep saying that I'm starting, and actually do it.

My hotel has a gym. I'm going to work out. Maybe my headache will go away.

Thanks for listening.

God, I feel disgusting.

It's a bad day.

Every day is a new resolution

2008-03-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

March is the time when the new year's resolutions really start to go out of existence for most people. That is, if they even managed to keep them this long (myself included). Throughout January you see lots of ads for gyms and diet sodas and exercise machines on tv and at the store. In February, it's still kind of around. By march, it's like they never existed at all.

And I'm noticing a lot of treadmills for sale on Craigslist.

Since I've been thinking about the whole addiction thing (see yesterday's post) anyway, it's made me consider the mantra of taking things one day at a time. On one hand, it seems so depressing. Is every day going to be a constant struggle of my stomach rumbling and a yearning for cadbury mini-eggs? It's almost worth being fat just to not have that struggle in life. Surely the extra stress of being hungry all that time has got to cancel out any lowering of blood pressure from thinness, no?

But on the other hand, it's inspiring. Ok, so if I messed up today, it's a new beginning tomorrow. And I don't have to think about losing the 70 pounds I want to lose - I just have to think about getting through today without binging. If I can get through today on a healthy note, tomorrow will take care of itself, and the 70 pounds I want to lose will take care of themselves, too.

It's not so overwhelming when you take things one day at a time. All I need to think about right now is getting through today. That's manageable. Not necessarily easy, but manageable.

So I'm trying to live from a 'one day at a time' perspective today and see where that gets me.

--

I started my day going up and down our 27 steps. I was telling J that I needed little pebbles or buttons or something to carry to drop at the top so I didn't lose count because yesterday I did - lose count. So he gave me 11 sticks, which he put at the base of the stairs. Each time I went down, I took one to the top. It was kind of fun - made me feel like I was on a quest of some sort, like in a video game, to move all the sticks to the top. It gave me something else to think about besides how my lungs were burning. Then I did two extra trips - one, after all the sticks were up, to go get them and bring them back down, and then the final one up after bringing them back down. Tomorrow I'm going to go for 12 sticks and 14 times up and down. My heart rate got up to something like 155 beats per minute, so I know it's a good workout.

Yay for me!

Addiction

2008-03-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

I was listening to NPR in the car today and heard an interview with a 25 year old guy who's just written a book called Tweak, which is a memoir of his years spent addicted to meth, heroine, you name it.

It got me thinking about addiction and food as addiction. I've spent time with the good people at Overeaters Anonymous, and I just can't seem to get it. I don't know whether it's my own stubbornness and inability to admit that I'm not in control of my eating, but I just have a problem with sitting around for an hour at a time talking about how badly I want to eat a box of twinkies with other people who would tackle me for the box of twinkies, if there was one.

I just don't know - am I completely out of control? Do I need to give this whole food thing up to my Higher Power? Do I need to do the twelve steps? Where does personal responsibility come in? How much of this can I take responsibility for? If I give it up to a Higher Power, then doesn't that make me less culpable?

I am also thinking about what causes me to eat, and how it relates to my general issues in life. I have this thing where I feel like life hasn't started yet. It will start someday - the day I get my act together and decide what I want to be when I grow up, or when I get thin or any number of things like that. I feel like being fat is my way of hiding from the world - I'm afraid to put myself out there and really go for what I want because of what people will say about me being fat. But as long as I'm fat I also don't have to go out there and take risks in life because of what I think people will say about me. So it becomes this vicious chocolate circle.

I wonder sometimes what I'd be like if I was thin. Would I really try to make a career out of writing? Would I share myself more openly? Would I smile at people in the grocery store? Would I have more friends? I don't know. I just know that I don't like myself like this. I don't like not easily fitting into airplane seats. I don't like shopping in the plus-size stores. I just don't like any of it.

--

On a positive note, now that the weather is getting warm, I'm spending more time outside, and I've been introducing practices like writing every morning into my life. And today I worked out on my steps. We live on a hill and there are 27 steps to get from our driveway to the house. I keep saying that if I could go out and walk up and down them every day, I'd be super fit. So I started today. I started out doing it 10 times. I'm not sure how long it took me - about 15 minutes, I think, but my heart rate got all kindsa crazy. Tomorrow I'm going to try for 11, and I'll also time it, and time my heart rate. It's been 30 minutes, and my heart is still pounding. If I could work up to doing it like 30 times a day, that would be awesome. And then I could do the stair climb to the top of the tallest building that they have every year in LA through my old gym. And I would be able to finish it. Especially since I'm doing this all at a high altitude with thin air. Imagine how fit I'd be if I could go up and down the stairs 50 times in thin air? God, that would be amazing. So that's what I'm going to do. 10 times today, 11 tomorrow. Go me.

Easter marshmallow peeps

2008-03-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

What is it with those delectable little marshmallow peeps? And yeah, I know they come out at other holidays now, but I still just associate them with Easter, so at Easter I eat them.

I ate 7 of them yesterday. 7 peeps, not 7 packages. I got a massive sugar rush that gave me a headache. But dang, it was worth it. I guess.

Other than that, I did ok. Oh, no, hang on, I had white pasta. We were out of whole wheat stuff. But I made whole wheat garlic bread. So that was impressive.

I'm still afraid to weigh myself, though. I've got to at some point. But not today.

Sugar free chocolate pudding and strawberries....

2008-03-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

So it's Monday and I'm feeling inspired. I don't know whether that's because I had a really productive day today, with minimal trips to the fridge, or if it's because the March issue of Vogue is a gazillion pages thick and I'm thinking about all the lovely clothes I'll be able to wear when I'm thinner someday (like maybe next year at this time???).

Anyway, so here's the good, the bad, and the ugly for the day.

The ugly
my....um...."problem" from yesterday is better. Praise the Lord.

The good:
I did fairly well with food today.
I ate:

Breakfast:
whole wheat mini-bagel with butter
frosted mini-wheats (skim milk)

Lunch:
Apple with peanut butter
cottage cheese
Kashi super-fibrous granola bar (5 grams of fiber - ooooh, my butt is gonna be happy!)
big chocolate chip cookie

3pm snack:
strawberry shortcake with a twist - shortcake made with bisquick low-fat stuff
strawberries and sugar free chocolate pudding. Oooh, it was yummmmmy.

ate one potsticker (my hubby ate 11. I was jealous).

6pm dinner:
it was taco night - we had tacos made with turkey, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and colby-jack cheese. I had the equivalent of 3 - I made them and then crushed them all up and ate it like a salad. Less mess that way.

It's only 9:30 now and I'm kind of hungry again. I might have the rest of the pint of strawberries with more sugar free chocolate pudding. Oooh, that is YUMMY. And the strawberries kind of stink up the fridge. So I'll get 'em outta there.

I worked out for 30 mins on the stairmaster thingy.

The bad:
who am I kidding. I'm FREAKING STARVING!

Oh well. It's a diet. I will continue to read Vogue. It will sustain me.

Also, I'm afraid to weigh myself.

ok, so no more joking around

2008-03-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

It's March - two months into this thing. I HAVE to start living up to my new year's resolution.

Today, I am officially old. I have...wait for it...a...hemorrhoid. This is caused by...wait for it...being overweight.

Why do I persist in doing this to myself? What do I get out of being big? Is it something about putting on a layer of protection because I had a screwed up childhood? I used to sleep around for validation, but now I'm married, and wouldn't want to anymore anyway, so I substitute chocolate for one-night-stands? Whatever it is, I need to figure it out, and quit it. I can quit it before I figure it out, though. I'm a firm believer in naval-staring (witness my ten+ years of being a Landroid) but too much of it can just lead to a backache and blurry vision.

So ok. I've been doing more with fiber, ahem, obviously, and eating whole grains, etc. I hardly ever eat white rice, and haven't had white bread in ages. But I need to start eating LESS of everything. Not just the same amount, but more healthy. I need to start limiting my portions. It's gonna suck, but whatever. I'll manage. I need to. My butt is begging me to.

Sigh.

Chaos and my refrigerator

2008-02-29T08:41:00.001-08:00

I have been kind of ok the past two days. Not great, not horrible. Really, it could be a lot worse.

One of the things I have been thinking about is the link between how I feel about myself, and my surroundings; and what I put into my mouth.

We moved up to the mountains at the end of November - I have a hard time remembering that because it seems so long ago. Then I had surgery. Then came the holidays. Then the Road Trip across America. So it's really been only about a month since I've been home from that, and have been able to nest properly and get into a pseudo-routine.

I really like routine. As much as I love travel and new adventures, I'm a Taurus, and I'm happiest when I can count on stability. For a long time my stability was travel - that was the constant in my life. It's basic 17th century physics - the whole Newtonian "body in motion stays in motion, a body at rest stays at rest, unless acted on by some outside force" law. For a long time I was a body in motion. Then an outside force came about (age, marriage, a job I like, who knows) and I became this body at rest.

So the point is, I am trying to get into a routine, and I really should be gentle with myself because it really hasn't been that long. But it's still hard when parts of the house are still in chaos, and we don't have a bathtub, and stuff is just not right yet.

So it stresses me out, and I eat. I don't plan what I eat because everything is in chaos. I just stuff things into my mouth without thinking about it because nothing else seems to make sense, so neither will the food.

The way I need to look at it, though, that would be more empowering, is that everywhere around me is in constant chaos; the least I could do is keep a routine with my food. And maybe that would start to create the "energy" of routine in my life, and then other things would follow. So that's what I'm going to start thinking about.

I say all this because yesterday I wasn't in my normal routine at home and so I ate a fast food fish sandwich. Ok, it wasn't mcdonalds, but still, it was breaded and not good. At least one good thing is that I didn't eat all the fries. Go me. I'll take the small victories whenever I can.

What do I get from food?

2008-02-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

It has occurred to me several times that so many of my happiest and most visceral memories involve food in some way. I suspect that's the reason that I don't want to forego food at all - it brings back all these happy memories for me. I wonder how it's related to the fact that I'm a hoarder - I hang on to lotions and pens that have "special" meaning to me, and then they go to waste. Whenever I go back to London I have to stop at muji and paperchase to stock up on pens, even though I have about 3000 pens with ink evaporating as we speak. In the same way, I need to go to Boots and stock up on lotion that brings back a "London smell" to me, even though I currently have 6 tubs of untouched Boots body butter. It's the same with food. I need to go to sainsbury's and get muller rice and trifles and volvic fruity and sugar-laden water, and all these tastes that I associate with London - it's like a trip isn't complete without at least five cadbury bars.

But then I make the same excuses to eat all the time. It's always a "special occasion" that justifies my excess. It's either a holiday, or getting ready for a holiday, or voting day, or arbor day, or Obama winning a primary, etc etc etc. Why do I need to have food to have a happy celebration? Where does that come from?

Sometimes I think about when I was little. It's no secret to most people who know me that I had a kind of crappy childhood - oh, I was always loved (that's the line my mom uses on me to assuage her guilt - "but you were always loved!" and I was - perhaps too much). There was a lot of fighting, and screaming, and mental health issues that went untreated for years. I remember fighting with my mom when I was very small - only about three. It's my contention that three year olds don't know how to fight and need to be taught it by, oh...an adult, perhaps?

Anyway, that aside, one of my happiest memories is eating tastykakes with my mom. Sometimes it would be after we'd fight. I remember one time when I was about 4, and she said that she wanted to stop fighting with me, and then we had a snickers bar. How could you not associate chocolate with goodness then?

The thing is, I'm not around fighting or screaming or violence any longer, and there's no reason why I have to keep eating food to remind me of happy times. I can have the London memories in my head - I don't need the fat on my waistline to remind me of Soho Square. I can celebrate Obama winning another primary without it involving brownies and ice cream. Besides which, all of that is just a distraction from the Happy Memories anyway.

Yes, food can be a big part of celebrations, but it shouldn't be the thing that happiness revolves around.

staying in the game

2008-02-10T18:30:00.001-08:00

So it's february and I haven't lost more than 2 lbs. Ok. So it's the time when I would normally give up and start earnestly digging into the peanut butter swirl ice cream in the freezer. But I'm not going to do that. I'm going to blog more, and I'm going to keep showing up.

I do these personal development seminars - have done 'em since I was a teenager - and the one thing they always say is that the breakthrough lies in showing up. Because if you don't do your homework, and you're confronted by the stuff you're thinking about, the easy thing to do is to quit going. But even if you don't do your homework, even if you sit like a zombie during the whole session, if you keep showing up, there will be a breakthrough (even if it's just that you came to each session despite the fact that you hated it).

So I'm going to show up. I'm going to blog. It's not going to be out of site, out of mind. I'm going to get back on track.

Stats after the road trip

2008-01-21T20:35:00.000-08:00

So I weighed 241 this morning. Not so bad, considering I just had two weeks of arby's and tastykakes. OOoh, living on the east coast is totally worth it just for the tastykakes alone.

I've been thinking about how much I associate vacations, travel, home, etc., with food. When I first took my now-hubby back to my hometown, it seems like all I wanted to do was eat with him. I wanted to take him to the original Auntie Anne's pretzel place because I went to school with Auntie Anne's daughter. I wanted to go to the pizza place that serves spaghetti pizza. I wanted to go to Sheetz every morning for one of their fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. I wanted to get tastykakes. When we went to philadelphia I wanted to eat a big cheesesteak with him. I wanted to eat eat eat eat eat. He doesn't even like to eat that much.

It's like that when I go to London, too. I need a pret a manger sandwich. I need a cafe nero hot chocolate. I need pizza express. I need a fruit trifle. I need mueller rice pudding. I need to eat eat eat.

Why? Why is a visit somewhere not complete without stuffing my face? Do I really associate food that closely with the places I love?

Food should definitely be an enjoyable part of travel - trying new things, remembering favorite meals of childhood, etc - but to the extent that I do it??

So anyway, that's what I'm thinking about.

My stats for the day were:

Breakfast:
Cereal
Apple

Snack:
kashi fiber cookie

Lunch:
2 slices leftover pizza (cheese and pineapple)
2 cinnamon breadsticks
a couple pieces of chocolate

Dinner:
brown rice and carribbean style beans
squash with butter
ice cream (a small amount)

later:
2 lindor truffles

Why is it so hard to eat right when you're traveling?

2008-01-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

What is it about travel that has all your good intentions go right out the window (and flop around on I-40 until a truck runs over it).

So we've been on a road trip, a work trip, a funeral trip, a "everything piled on at once" 12 day epic journey, six of which were spent driving 900 miles a day.

I started out with the best of intentions. I ate salads at every travel center fast food place we stopped. I got the light dressing. I drank water.

But somewhere around Alabama my resolve went out the window. I was on a road trip, dammit. That means I can eat an Arby's roast beef sandwich with my salad if I want to.

So now we're home and trying to settle back into normal life. I'm scared to weigh myself. But I guess I'll have to.

Tomorrow.

One small good thing is that I went grocery shopping today, our first day home, and I bought loads of veggies again. And I chopped them up again. I'm so proud of me. The fridge is filled with lots of lovely appetizing veggies all conveniently washed and chopped and ready to eat.

I'm gonna do this thing, dangit.

I go through the mcdonald's drive through and don't order fries!

2008-01-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

Small victory for the day - i go to mcdonald's and order a salad, small fruit and yogurt parfait, and diet coke. And get outta there with no fries! GO ME! I well and truly rock.

Anyway, the scale said something more normal this morning - 243. I guess maybe it was in a weird place on the rug or something? Who knows. All you can do is do what you do.

So I've been watching what I've been eating for just over a week now. And I've gotten pretty good about not noshing on chocolate randomly, etc. In fact, this afternoon I bought my hubby a bag of small snicker's bars, and just ate one. Could it be that someday I'll get over Chocolate?

I read a lot of stuff about Carnie Wilson today. I know, she had surgery, but she was my age now when she had it and started to get in shape. And she looked HOT afterwards. So I am hoping that in a year or two, I will look that hot.

It seems so far from now, but it's been 10 years of plumpyness, and it beats getting fatter. And, really, a year goes by so quickly now that I'm in my 30's...

So, the stats for today:

7am:
3 multigrain waffles with a little bitsy bit of butter and lite syrup

noon:
leftover chili over whole wheat spaghetti (interesting taste!)
small brownie with ice cream

3pm:
the Mcdonald's drivethrough -
salad
small fruit and yogurt parfait
diet coke

5pm:
one mini-snickers bar

7pm:
Date Night Pizza Time:
3 slices, but with light cheese and extra sauce

Scales are evil, and I resist the temptation of too many brownies

2008-01-03T21:44:00.000-08:00

Thought number 1: Scales are inherently evil. I stepped on J's grandma's scale this morning and it reads 247 when I'm buck naked. How can it be that my dr. office scale just last week said 244 WITH clothes AND shoes? I'm trying not to think about it. Whatever. I'll just measure it from that. But good lord - 247? God, it's good I caught it in time.

Thought number 2: Tonight I baked brownies. I had one for dessert, with a small (read, regular portion, I guess) amount of ice cream. Later I got in the pan to get one for J. I almost ate a chunk of his crumbs, and took a bite from his fork. But I resisted! I DO have the POWER! I so totally ROCK!

So here are the stats for the day:

7am:
half a bagel with butter
hot chocolate

10am:
apple
PB&J uncrustable (ooh, I do love that peanut-buttery gooieness)

2pm: Ell Pollo Loco
BRC burrito
side garden salad (no dressing. I do indeed rock.)
1 churro (they come in a pack of 2, but I bravely give one away to J)

5pm: I'm sure I noshed on a piece of chocolate here and there, but not more than 3 hershey kisses.

7pm:
Turkey and veggie chili leftovers on a baked potato
brownie with ice cream

I'm supposed to be hungry...

2008-01-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

It's my new mantra...
It's a diet.
I'm supposed to be hungry.
I'm supposed to be hungry.
I'm supposed to be hungry.

I don't need a chocolate bar.
I need to fit into cool clothes and stop being fat.

I'm supposed to be hungry.
That means it's working.

I'm supposed to be hungry.

Goddammit I'm hungry

2008-01-02T21:01:00.000-08:00

I think I'll do jumping jacks. Or maybe take a shower. Or look at the website for The Limited, where I haven't been able to shop since I was 20. Oh, to be a size 12 again. I am holding on to all the great clothes I'll be able to buy once I'm not fat anymore. I'll be a fashionista. AND the clothes I'll be able to wear again that have been living in my parents' basement. All those cool clothes from the summer I worked at the Gap. I don't care if they're not in fashion anymore. I'll wear them anyway. And SHORTS! I haven't worn shorts in 10 years.

Anyway, I keep telling myself I'm supposed to be hungry. I'm on a diet. I've been used to eating thousands of extra calories a day. I'm SUPPOSED to be hungry now. I need to retrain my body so that it doesn't expect 3000 calories a day. It won't last forever. If I can get through the first two or three weeks, it'll be ok. I'll get used to eating 1500-1800 calories a day, that'll be normal, and I won't feel so hungry anymore.

So here's the rundown for the day:

8am
Cereal
1 small chocolate chip cookie (so sue me)

1pm
brown rice with red beans
grilled fish
breaded corn fritter thingys (4)

4pm
10 mint M&M's
2 clementine oranges

6:30
chili (no rice, thank you very much, but did add some shredded cheese)

8:30
2 clementine oranges

New Year's Day

2008-01-01T21:43:00.000-08:00

We got a scale today from J's grandma's house. She died last Thursday, and she was really quite large. I'm kind of thinking that I'm going to draw on her for inspiration now that she has shed her worldly body, so I decided that I would use her worldly scale, which isn't some fancy-dancy body-composition computer.

So, the stats for the day:

Breakfast:
Cereal
Apple

Lunch:
Cesar Salad with Chicken and light dressing
Small side of potato salad
2 small pieces of chocolate

Snack:
Noshed on some micky d's fries while at J's grandma's house. Bad Heather.

Dinner:
Grilled tilapia
Rice
Side of veggies
Side of cole slaw
2 slices of garlic bread (uh-oh)

Evening pickings:
hot chocolate (I was freezing and everything else hot I have has caffeine)
part of a hollow chocolate santa clause (I have no excuse for that)

All in all, it wasn't so bad. Not amazingly good, but I did eat a lot of veggies, and that's a good thing.

No workout today. We were really busy and tired all day.

Reward System

2008-01-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've decided that I need to come up with some concrete rewards for myself as I lose weight. This will also fall in line with my other resolution of not spending so much dang money on junk I never use. So here is the system I am devising:

Current weight: 244

234 (end of January): BareEscentuals makeup kit

224 (mid-March): Nintendo Wii and the boxing game for it
(I have a doctor appointment on March 20 - would like to be 224 by then)

210 (beginning of May): shoe shopping in NYC - we are going for my birthday for a long weekend

200 (mid-June): new summer clothes

190 (end of August): Spa day and day of beauty

...and that's all I'm going to do for now - I think it's doable - I'm looking at about a pound and a half per week. It's a stretch, but we'll see how it goes - it's something to shoot for.

Adventures in whole wheat pasta

2007-12-31T20:51:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-12-29T17:47:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-12-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

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.