Staring down the weekend....

Twenty more minutes until the end of the workday. I'm going to meet a friend for drinks at 9:30 after I hit the gym for a nice long workout. I really need this workout. I've been a grump today - tired and irritable.

I said to Kevin, I think I'm depressed today. He says, Go to the gym!

Who is this man? I love it.

Things are going okay this week, food-wise. I'm doing my best. I've been trying to integrate some of this mindfulness about eating too much sugar/empty crap, which causes hunger and a desire for more sugary crappity. It hasn't actually effected the amount of points (calories) I'm eating in a day yet, but I've been eating more nutritious stuff, so hopefully after a couple weeks of this mindfulness, it will result in consuming less food overall. I've been eating more fruits and veggies, healthier breakfasts, and avoiding fried stuff, so all in all, it's progress.

It's funny to be going around in these same circles, mentally, about how/what to eat that I was in when I first embarked on the weight loss journey. I feel like I could have written the exact paragraph above five years ago. I'm not disappointed by it at all, I don't expect myself to be cured of my desire to nosh just because I've done this all before. I know that this is how the human mind works, in fact. It has to retrace the same pattern dozens and dozens of times before a new groove gets carved out and a new habit is formed. And even then, the old groove is right there waiting for you to slip up and return to its seductive clutches. Blah blah blah, just eat a goddammed apple, ya know?

It's Friday today and I've only worked out on Wednesday of this week so far. So this weekend will probably involve a couple good workouts to make up for it. Sunday, Kevin and I are going to his parents house to hang with the fam/see the nephew. I'm looking forward to it. I enjoy their company and that baby is just to die for. He calls me Jem. Have I mentioned that yet? If not, I'm surprised. Because I've told everyone else who will listen. It's just too precious. His mom, Kevin's sister Lisa, told Kevin that he's been calling every woman he meets lately "Jem." Couldn't you just die over that? It's the sweetest. I want him to live at my house, this baby. But only for a week. ;)

ANNNNYway...I'm planning to paint my bedroom tomorrow, which is good for the ol' bod. And I'll hopefully get to exercise with Kev afterwards. Then Sunday morning we're slotted to play tennis with his dad when we get to Rockland. Should be lovely. Not much of a serious workout, but movement nonetheless. If it's nice out, maybe I'll go for a run in the evening.

Weekends always present food challenges. Tonight will hopefully be easy to navigate. Going to the gym before going out will put me in a healthy mindframe. I'll have a couple drinks afterwards, but nothing too heavy, and a light dinner. And Sunday will of course be tough food-wise too. Family. Brunch. Spreads of food. It's not ideal. But I'll live. My goal is to get through this weekend having worked out at least twice and having eaten within my points each day. It can be done. I know it.

Grrrr.....

The commenter to the post below is correct. I need to be more mindful of the types of foods I'm eating if I want to avoid being extremely hungry and without the points to feed that hunger at the end of every day. That's going to cause overeating every time.

Again, that stupid fine line between eating what's good for your body and eating what you WANT rears its annoying head.

I've been mindful today. Naturally, because why could it be easy, I'm very hungry anyway. But the first day "off" too much useless food is always difficult.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna stop eating useless food, but I do want to eat a bit less of it for a while. I think I won't be so hungry all the time.)

I gymmed at lunch - 25 mins on the 'mill. Nothing extreme, but it's all I had time for. I can't wait to eat dinner, I'm seriously ravenous, despite eating good stuff today.

I'm irritated by the whole mess.

As expected, the scale was up this morning, weigh-in morning, almost certainly due to the mexican fiesta I participated in on Sunday night. What can you do, right? I gained a pound this week. Who really cares, I know I'm making over all progress. I'll just keep telling you guys that so I can keep telling myself.

I didn't workout last night, I was too tired/recovering from my hangover. I went straight home after work (due to a cancelled rehearsal, which was lucky for me) and slept the night away. I woke up feeling pretty good this morning.

I've been snacky again today. I started out the day very well with some whole grain toast, a tiny bit of peanut butter, and a banana. I felt full. Then we got free lunch at work. I opted to order a chicken sandwich and fries. It sounds unhealthy, but I think I might have ended up eating even more points had I ordered either of the other two options (sushi or salads). I find that when I go for one of those options and I'm eating out I end up using 9-14 points ANYway. Silly. So I got the chicken burger and fries and only ate about 1/4 of the fries and considered that I was employing that "I Can Make You Thin" guy's method of eating what I want. I think his stuff makes sense. And I did enjoy the meal.

But then I wanted something sweet in the afternoon. And I had eight points worth of sweets. It wasn't intentional. I didn't realize how many points were in the chocolates I ate. :( But I didn't exactly double check before eating them either. That will forever be my downfall: I love sweet stuff and could eat a whole meal of it.

The reason I'm detailing all this a bit more than usual is because I'm trying to get to the bottom of what's causing my weekly over eating. This past week was another week of not-ideal eating and really great exercise. It's the best exercise I've had in months, in fact. So it's disheartening that I might have impeded that progress by overeating. (Birthday party. Like I said, I don't regret it. But still.) I'm hoping to pay a bit more attention to my habits each day so I can make some small changes that might pay off in the long run. I think the sweets is an important thing to note. Perhaps also it might be better if I could have some more protein at breakfast.

So I suppose something I should work on this week is decreasing the sweets and increasing the fruits and veggies and lean proteins. This is histortically difficult for me - especially if I'm operating in that "i deserve" mindset. I deserve sweets. Well, true. I do. But I also deserve to be healthy and well-fed from a nutritional standpoint. So I guess I'm going to have to start practicing some more fruit-intaking.

My plan for tomorrow is to have protein in the morning, a frozen meal at lunchtime, something small for dessert, a snack of nuts and fruit in the afternoon, and maybe sushi for dinner.

I've already gone over my points for the day today by 5. And I haven't even had dinner yet. My plan is to get something relatively light for dinner - hopefully 8points or less - and then exercise after my rehearsal, reducing some of the damage. Today is the first day of my new week and I really want to get off to a good start, but eating all your points plus five more before 7pm isn't a good start. I think I can clean it up, though, with a little mindfulness.

DAMN YOU SCALE. You get me every fucking time.

Weigh-In Eve

So, it's been another interesting week for me. Up until last night, in fact, I'd had one of the better weeks I'd had in a while in terms of WW. I'd exercised four times, including several cardio sessions that included running, which has been a welcome re-edition to my exercise routine. Best of all, finding ourselves with a few hours to kill yesterday afternoon, Kevin and I ended up meeting at the gym in between activities. We totally motivated each other to do a nice 50 minutes on the treadmill, over 30 of which were running for both of us. This is awesome for him. And for me. But it's a huge achievement for him - he just started exercising two weeks ago.

That workout was particularly great. And my eating all week, although by no means perfect, was better than it had been in weeks prior. I went into last night's birthday dinner for my roommate with a pretty good record for the week. But then we ate and drank to our heart's content and it looks like it'll be another week of using 35 more flex points than I'm allowed. Last night's dinner (including drinks) was 30 points on its own. So...basically...had I not gone to that dinner, I would have had a very OP week. But I wanted to go and I'm glad I went and I wouldn't trade it. So I think that's important to realize. If someone came up to me and said, "You will have a perfect week this week in terms of your healthy lifestyle, but as a tradeoff, you can't go to Daniel's birthday dinner," I would have said HELL no. So. That sheds some nice light on my priorities for me.

I wasn't too torn up about the 30 point meal to begin with. I never am anymore, devastated after I eat something I shouldn't. It's life.

I'm not sure what to expect on the scale at tomorrow's WI. But I don't particularly care. It would be nice to see a loss, but I did so well this week that I'll use that as my yard stick, not the scale.

Cookies, donuts, and how life ain't fair.

I ran again yesterday at the gym. I ran 20 and walked 10. It went by in a flash - as I was just trying to get it over with - and I didn't even realize I'd done it once it was over.

The scale, which I've been avoiding getting on for the last couple days due to PMS, was UP big time this morning. Annoying, but could be any number of things. I'm having an okay week so far.

There was a time when WW wasn't this hard for me. It makes sense - when you first start out on a major weight loss effort, you can tell yourself time and again that it's a "lifestyle change" and that you can never go back to your old, mindless ways. But in those first few weeks/months, somewhere deep in your mind, as you're eating more fruit than you would have ever dared so much as look at in your old life, as you're drinking more water than you think your kidneys can process, as you're going to sleep a little bit hungry each night, you daydream about a day when you can return to eating whole pizzas by yourself and having bags of doritos as a snack. You know it's likely never going to be possible to fully live that way again - and who'd want to. It brought along a great deal of misery. But you still hold on to the possibility that you won't always feel like a rabbit munching away on his leafy greens and carrots, that you might someday again be able to eat a bowl of mac n' cheese on a rainy afternoon with the rest of society and not have to cut off an inch of hair to make up for it on the scale.

And that day DOES eventually come in some form or another. No, you can't eat a whole pizza or a container of general tso's chicken or whatever you want from McDonalds every day. But you eventually get to a place, after you've lost the weight and gained the good habits, where you feel like you can have a donut without feeling like you shouldn't. You know you've earned that donut. You've spent hours and hours, weeks, months, years even, of sweating, counting calories, saying no thank you to sweets during the holidays at work - you've earned a guilt-free donut from time to time.

After almost six years following this plan, I'm at that point with it - and have been for quite some time. I've earned a donut. I used to be FAT. VERY fat. I'm now normal. I can wear clothes that other people wear, I can fit in airplane seats, I can ride rollercoasters, I'm in a happy, healthy relationship with an attractive guy. And I worked hard to get to this place. I worked hard for years. I said no to things I wanted and went to the gym when I would have rather been any place else. I knew while I was losing the weight that if I wanted to maintain it, I'd eventually have to learn to live life without as much restriction as I used to lose it. But I also knew I couldn't get the weight off to begin with if I didn't restrict myself more than I would have if it were really the rest of "forever."

It's now very hard for me to be as restrictive as I used to be. I don't feel like I have some kind of "fat debt" to pay off anymore. When I was in the process of losing the weigh, people would ask me if it was hard to change my eating habits; I used to say, "I've spent years eating everything imaginable. I can stand a few years of eating a little less." It felt like penance almost for my sins. I ruined my body for a long time, I had to pay back a little bit to the health bank. And in turn, I'd get to be thin again. Under that structure, I think I've paid off that fat debt by now. I think I've avoided restaurants and "drinks" out with friends and parties with free food for long enough to have paid off that debt. And now I just want it to all balance out. I want to workout sometimes and eat well sometimes. And I want to do NOTHING sometimes and eat a donut sometimes.

But the one snag in that plan is that still want to lose 15 pounds.

And you can't lose pounds when you're maintaining your weight with the above-mentioned donut balance. Apparently I've yet to get this through my head.

Even though, I'd never been SUPER restrictive, EVER, as I lost my weight, I'd still been more restrictive than felt good at times. But I'm human. And I don't want to do that anymore. I did it for years. That's long enough. So we go this route. This route where I do what I want when I want and work sorta hard but not too hard the rest of the time and hope for the best. And I guess what that amounts to is losing 1 pound a month.

Fine.

Right?

Who knows. It has to be fine. Because it's what is.

That said, I had a bit of a mini-breakdown at the gym yesterday after my short workout. A fat-girl breakdown the likes of which I haven't experienced in quite some time.

I was standing in the locker room checking a text message and I realized I was across from a full-body mirror so I glanced up. Now, maybe it was a fat mirror, maybe I was standing in a really relaxed way (i.e. not sucking in at all), or maybe I was really bloated from my period (sorry boys) or from having just ran/drank a lot of water. But whatever it was, it was not a flattering imagine. And I got very upset. Disgusted almost. I looked around at the other girls in the locker room and felt so alone. They all looked perfect. I thought nothing about how unrealistic I was being or how hard it is to live in a town full of stick-thin models or how far I've come or how I know I look perfectly fine walking through my life day to day. Those positive thoughts, as near your mind as they may be in moments like those, cannot save you from feeling blue when it sneaks up on you like that. I looked in the mirror and I was filled with a familiar, old rage, a helplessness, a feeling of "it's so unfair!" and a feeling of worthlessness. I haven't felt that way in years. Intellectually, I remembered how different my life is now and how unhelpful those feelings are. I also remembered how when I was fat I would soothe those feelings by going straight to Wendys. I haven't done that in years either. But regardless it put a cramp in the rest of my evening. When I looked in the mirror I wanted to punch myself over and over or something else equally destructive for being such a failure. I just felt bad. It was fascinating.

And to think, I used to feel that way almost every second of the day. ..It's amazing to recall, really.

All I can do is to keep working on it. And also, almost more importantly, I have to try to remember that I am not my physical flaws. I can feel good about who I am and what I offer the world (and I do regularly feel good about that) without always feeling good about how I look in jeans.

But that's not an emotional healing that's going to come overnight. I've already come very far with that healing in six years. And the rest of the healing will probably be something I'm working on for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I'm going to eat fewer cookies and see what happens. Ugh.

To Run.

I've been really busy at work today but I had to take a break to write briefly about my exercise last night.

I ran for the first time in probably two months. It was really nice. It was HARD. Harder than I ever remember it being. But it was nice.

I used to run all the time. I've never been a race-runner, never trained for a marathon or anything so heroic, but I was a pretty dedicated runner for quite some time nonetheless. I always felt that even though I also love walking as a form of cardio, running always brought my body/mind to an elevated place I couldn't quite achieve with walking or hiking. Not to mention I walk easily 7-10 miles a day in my NYC life as it is. My body's pretty used to the walking. So I looked to running to bring me to a different place that I couldn't get to through other exercise and to make my body, lungs, and heart stronger. All runners will tell you about the meditative state they achieve after a certain amount of time into the run and I always had the same experience. I still feel like I'm in a meditative state during any kind of exercise, but running is slightly different. You're in a zone unlike anything else.

I set out last night to jog to the gym near my apartment because it's a quick jog and it just seemed easier/faster than walking there. I'm not sure why I thought it would be easier, it certainly wasn't. But it was faster and I wanted to elevate my heartrate before my latenight lifting session (went to gym around 10pm). And frankly I just didn't want to spend the time on the treadmill at the gym getting my heartrate up with an incline hike. Running, when I hadn't done so in a couple months, seemed like the sneaky way out of doing more cardio than I wanted to do.

As soon as I started out on the run I was shocked by how difficult it was to move my body like that. I exercise all the time and have been consistent with my exercise for 5 years, not to mention I used to be a runner! But a few months away from it apparently made my body forget entirely. I wasn't bummed out by how difficult it was, I was actually encouraged to get back into the running game, at least every now and again.

When I got to the gym 7 minutes later, it didn't feel like enough. My body was tingling and I was craving more so I hopped on the treadmill and finished out 20 minutes. It was still REALLY hard. The whole time I was on the treadmill the seconds seemed to be passing like molasses and I wanted to quit the moment I started, but I finished the 20 minutes and I'm glad I did. It felt really good. Then I did a nice lifting session and walked home.

I'm not planning to get back up to my hour-long runs anytime soon. I think it might be a bit too hard on my body and I also don't have the time to commit to it. And as I've learned with my running, if you can't commit the time to building up your endurance, it's going to suck every time you start over. But I would like to add back in 10-40 minute stints here and there for a little variety. Not every day. But every once in a while. My body was certainly shocked to be moving in that way again last night and we all know variety is the KEY to effective exercise. ;) We all know that, right?

So that's that. I'll have some time tomorrow night to workout, only about an hour though, so I plan to do some light lifting, some pilates, and 30 minutes of cardio. We'll see how long within that 30 minutes I can run.

I forgot to add! My boyfriend started working out!! This is hugely great news for several reasons:
1. He hasn't actively exercised in years and I worry about his health because I'm a nice jewish mother. I can already notice a difference in his moods and sleep habits.
2. When he didn't work out it was hard for me to gather up the motivation to go myself as often as I want to. "If he's not doing it, why should I be?" I'd usually go anyway, but sometimes I wouldn't. It's so much easier to suck it up now that I feel like he can relate.
3. It's something new and fun we can do together. It's so rewarding to be able to both work towards certain goals and feel like we can support each other and share in the activity itself and the healthy lifestyle as a whole. We don't workout together all the time, he's been going by himself sometimes too, but when we go together it's fun.
4. I feel a little bit competitive with him, the newbie, about how much he's exercising. I've actually gotten up off my ass and headed to the gym on several occassions in the last week when I might not have if he hadn't already gone to the gym that day. The jerk. ;)

So all in all, it's a good thing and a nice positive addition to my healthy lifestyle pursuits. It's been a lovely change of pace. I told him he can't overdo it, burn out in a month, and quit on me, because I can't go back to doing it all alone. I know he won't though.

I haven't written because I haven't had much to say that seems noteworthy.

But here's an update:

Things were going very well in this regard before we went to Florida. Things are still going okay.

Florida was lovely - I certainly ate and drank more than I'd hoped to, but less than I could have, for sure. I was relatively restrained at almost every meal. I also exercised a lot while we were there! That was a big victory. I did a nice long session at the resort's gym one day, a walk on the beach another day, and a pilates class too. It was really nice and I was proud of myself for doing that. We got lots of sun and I felt pretty refreshed when we returned.

It was a bit difficult to jump back onto the healthy eating bandwagon when I got back to New York. Not impossible, but a bit difficult. I definitely overate a bit the week after the vacation too. This past week things were back to normal a bit.

I'm still eating over my flex points each and every single week like clock work. Some weeks it's 23 points over, one week (vacation week) it was closer to 50. 25-30 is the norm. That's that many points OVER my flex.

I'm not sure what this is about. There was a time when I could eat 35 flex points and no more each week without trouble. Granted, I almost always went 2-8 over, but nothing like 30. And that's the norm now.

Like I've mentioned before, exercise is going well. I have been earning 8-12 APs most weeks since January 1. I am extremely conservative with how many APs I call the workouts I do. I used to really over-estimate, I think, and what's the point of working out if I just gobble all those calories back up. So I'm conservative. For me, the 8-12 APs are 3-4 good workouts a week. I'm satisified with that.

So it's really just the extra eating I've got to work on. And as we all know, that takes time.

Today marks three months to the day since I started this challenge for myself back in January. I've lost 4 pounds (as of today - which I think is high from PMS, but that's the number we'll call it) total in these three months. It's really not great. But it's not bad. Same ol'. I do desire very much to put a larger dent in things, but practice makes progress and that's really all I can do.

It's very interesting to look back over the numbers of these last three months and see how consistently I eat each week, even if it's consistenly "over" my points. I'm a queen at weight maintenance. And lucky for me (and not lucky for my scale) I have a boyfriend who adores me and doesn't care if i never lose another pound. Great. Thanks a lot, Kev. ;)

So, like every day, like every Tuesday, like the beginning of every month, I have a chance to start over and work to keep things under control.

I've eaten all my points so far today and it's only 7pm. I splurged on Pad Thai at lunch. But that's okay. I'll go workout after work and have something very light for dinner. Sweets are the death of me lately. I can't get enough. Perhaps I can find a lo-fat option at the grocery store. I know I can. It's just choosing to do it.

Good Stuff

Well I got on the scale this morning for a before-vacation-peek and lo and behold it's moving downward at quite a clip. Thank god. This is the drop I've been waiting for. Granted, I don't eat perfectly each week, but I'm eating better than I was before I started back with WW online. And I'm working out harder and more consistenly. It's not quite enough to put up huge numbers each week, but in my mind it was enough to make SOME sort of a dent. And that dent has finally arrived. Like I said, my body does this. Waits and waits and then let's go once it's sure this is our new pattern. It is, Body. It is.

I didn't workout last night, I was so ridiculously tired (from a bizarre inability to sleep the night before) that I went right home, got a manicure for the trip, dropped off my laundry, ate some dinner, and was in bed by 9:15. It was essential. I was supposed to go see a friend's play, but he told me during the day that it started at 7pm, which I hadn't even realized even though I'd been planning to go for weeks. I couldn't go because I don't get out of work until 7. I didn't mind, though. I needed a night to myself. I've eaten rather light dinners the last couple nights...not on purpose, just because I'm not particularly hungry or I don't feel like eating. It's a welcome anamoly. I think opting to eat most of my calories in the earlier/midday part of the day makes a difference for sure. THat's something I'll have to try to keep in mind. I don't need to save as many points for the evening time as I think I do. (Good thing because I rarely end up saving as many as I intend to save anyway.)

Tonight I'm off to Florida. The low scale number and the way my body feels slim and tone and loose in my clothes are all making me feel pretty good and are a great way to start out this vacation. I think it will inspire me to get some exercise and eat reasonably on the trip. Like I said, I don't have a terribly hard time eating well when traveling so hopefully this trip will be no different.

I plan to go get some cardio in at lunch today. Might as well. Then i'll leave the office early, stop home, and hop on a plane around 7pm. The SUN and the warmth and the ocean....I mean, it's essential to my mental health. This trip is coming at a really nice time.

My mini goals for this trip:

exercise at least once, hopefully twice
eat within reason
drink lo-cal alcohol drinks, not 12 point frozen ones

Pretty simple.

floridian.

Allllright. So, I thought I'd check in. Frankly, it's partially to stave off the intense hunger I'm feeling right now. It's a bit too early to have lunch but I'm going to have to cave and eat something soon. I'm seriously ravenous. In fact, I've been ravenous since 7pm last night. I've eaten since then, trust me, but I'm insatiable right now.

Luckily, though, it doesn't feel like the death sentence it can sometimes be, this voracious hunger. Because I think it means I'm losing weight. :)

I've been working out pretty regularly and I'm finally seeing some results from the hard work I've been doing. I find that my body generally responds that way after a hiatus. It takes weeks sometimes for my body to go "Ohhhokay, we're doing this again? Okay, I can let go of some of these pounds." The same is true in reverse. If I'm in a really good place and I have a few bad days in a row, my body doesn't really register it. It just keeps on burning through it.

Hopefully I can work this in my favor for a little while. With a trip to Tampa on the horizon (we leave tomorrow night and come back Tuesday night) I'll need it. Although for some reason I don't anticipate this trip being a food fest. There's a lovely workout facilty at our resort. And the weather itself just begs to be exercised in. So I'm hoping to get in at least a couple workouts. And I find I don't usually eat a ton on trips like this. I'm so conscious of potentially overeating that I'll undereat without even realizing it. That said, WE'LL SEE. Ya know? I'll be drinkin', that I do know.

Things are good though, on this front. I feel slimmer, I'm loving my time at the gym. I'm consistently working out 3 times a week (combo of lifting, pilates, and cardio), which is not perfect, but consistency is key and I'm pretty happy with the results right now. Maybe it will bump up to 4 times a week as the weather gets warmer.

goals

So I'm going to set some minigoals for this week. I started a new weight watchers week yesterday and it went pretty well until dinner time when I ended up eating a great deal of snacks I'd gotten at the grocery store, in edition to my dinner and a delicious raspberry tart. Yah. They weren't terrible choices, but they weren't great either. And with a day of eating not-tiny meals already behind me, it ended up being a pretty unfortunate food day. But I'm trying lately to be as honest and accurate as possible when noting how many points I've eaten. It's the only way to make changes - to know exactly what needs changing.

I had a good workout yesterday after work, 45 minutes on the treadmill. I hope to go do some weight lifting at lunch today. But good workouts don't make a ton of difference if you're eating twice what you burnt off when it's over. Which is kinda what happened last night. I also felt stuffed, which was no good either. And I woke up this morning with an unfortunate headache that coffee has not shaken. Blech.

Mini goals for this week will include: 4 sessions of cardio, at least 3 servings of fruit and veggies a day, and as-accurate-as-possible food tracking.

The boyfriend is out of town this weekend - I wonder if that will help me to eat less. I have an engagement party to go to on Friday night that will decidedly not help me to eat less. But perhaps I can get away with only eating some. Instead of all.

The Given Circumstances

I know I haven't been updating this. My other blog has suffered too. I just don't have it in me to maintain the two blogs right now. I got a lot goin on.

Weight loss is the same. I've lost about 5 pounds since January 1, which is to say that the month of February saw very little progress. Not great, not bad, just not a huge focus at the moment. I don't have much to say about it other than I feel just fine about my progress.

I'm spending more time at the gym than I have been in recent months, ramping that back up slowly but surely, so that's a very good thing. Check back with me in a year and I should have made some marginal progress in the form of 6 pounds lost. ;)

I'm happy with whatever progress occurs. As long as I'm either maintaining or losing (and not gaining) I don't know what else I can do other than quit eating. Not gonna happen. So I'm fine.

I'm not suggesting that I stay perfectly on plan, I'm saying that I do the very best I can do each week with all the given circumstances of my life in this realm. Every week I eat a little less, exercise a little more...I cannot offer much else to the project than my best. 5 pounds in two months is pretty good for me.

Do I come on here and say this once a month? Probably. It remains. If i suddenly gain or lose ten pounds, you'll be the first to know.

Oh, NYC.

I just made a turkey sandwich from turkey I bought at the deli counter, laughing cow cheese, mayo, mustard, and a whole wheat english muffin. It tastes just as good if not better than anything I've had for lunch from take-out places in the area the last few days and it's so much healthier because I know what I put in it. (Plus, cheap!)It's 4 points and it's a whole delicious sandwich.

Why do I always forget that it's better all-around to grocery shop rather than eat out? Oh, NYC. You and your delicious take-out make it hard on a girl..

Long Overdue

Here I am. I am here.

Sometimes taking a deep breath and sitting down to write out the minutia of all of this stuff takes it out of me before I've even typed one thing. Ultimately, it's all just unnecessary detail. I ate this much, I moved this much, I lost this much, I gained this much, I should do more of this, that, or that other thing. Blah blah, right? I think that's probably why I quit writing my weight loss blog to begin with several years back. I got tired of recounting it all.

That said, as useless as it sometimes feels to spend time recounting a lot of it to the internet, I still think it helps me to check in occasionally and be accountable to myself? my friends? I'm not sure...but it keeps me focused on my goals I suppose.

My goals. Ohhh my goals. My goal presently is to lose weight. I'm doing it, I'd say. My scale ran out of batteries this morning (I just bought it so I didn't know that could fucking happen, but alas) so I'm not sure exactly where we are on that progress, but I know we are SLOWLY (slowly, people) making headway.

I've probably lost a fair 5 pounds since I began this journey on January 1. I think I reported that loss earlier on this blog. And since then it's gone up and down and up and down. I'm eating too much and not exercising enough. But I'm not gaining weight. And I'm rebuilding good habits which will hopefully continue to serve me better and better as time goes on. 5 pounds total in a little over a month is not too shabby and I will take it. Another few months like this and I'll be done!

Last week was one of the better weeks I'd had in a while. I got in a few good workouts, nothing mind blogging, but I spent some time and energy on my body, which is better than nothin. I came into Superbowl Sunday with no flex points left to speak of - no problem there since I worked out and ate lightly during the day, and saved up 17 points to spend on our spread. (I made chili, Randy made dip, Daniel brought sweets, we had beer and veggie dip and chips and crap.) And I ate it. All 17 points of it - and then probably 25 more points of it. Yup. "Ruined" an entire week in about 4 hours.

I'm not sweating it. Had that food fest not occurred, I would have gotten through the week with flying colors - I was on track to have one of my best weeks since returning to the program. And Superbowl Sunday doesn't happen every week. So perhaps this week I will have that much more self control, without the eating holiday thrown in the mix, and come out on top.

Since I began WW in September of 2002, almost six years ago now, I have become so much more aware of what I'm eating, when, how much, and why. And as I lost that 100 pounds in the first couple years, a day of diet derailment was usually very hard to stomach. No pun intended. In those days, I would be very upset with myself the next day after a food fest - sad, worried, and disappointed. It's taken years to move past all that nonsense and just be and live and not get furious with myself over a chili-cheese dip snafu. It fucking happens. And I work my ass off the rest of the time, saying no thank you to something yummy I want, or exercising when I don't feel like it, so that I can have some chili-cheese dip from time to time. Because I LOVE DIPS.

The bottom line is that I, who used to walk around so uncomfortable because my hips hurt from carrying too much weight, I, who used to be humiliated to get dressed every morning, I, who had NOTHING to wear because none of it fit me, I, who ate fast food at every meal and consciously chose NOT to eat healthy things, I don't live like that anymore. I walk everywhere I go, I eat three squares a day and snack very little. I eat fruits when I remember to and veggies when they're there and I stop eating when I feel full (usually). I exercise, I fit into small clothes, I look great! I look great because I feel great. I'm not a size 2. I never will be. I'm lucky I'm okay with that, I'm lucky I'm in love with a man who's more than okay with that. Superbowl Sundays don't really matter in the grand scheme. I worked out before hand and planned my day around eating junk food. I never would have done that six years ago. I would have had a Wendy's cheeseburger on my way to the party.

So the scale can continue to go up 2 pounds, down 2 pounds, my motivation to exercise can be all over the place, but my ability to maintain a healthy weight is never going to change again. I know how to do it. And if I'm this weight for the rest of my life, I will be okay with that. I'm a differnet person now and it boggles my mind when I think about it. It wasn't THAT long ago on life's timeline that I was obese. And it's such a blessing to get to know both lives. And to have chosen this one.

My "new" week started yesterday. All the other weeks are behind me. I'm going to workout today at lunch. And tomorrow after work too. I'm going to try to get some more fruits and veggies in too. I'm doing well with food so far and I hope to see a loss this week. I think I shall. I think I shall.

(Some business: WW online changed my points-per-day from 23 down to 22. Probably because I gained last week and they wanted to offset it. Fine. Fair. But it also went back and rewrote all my previous weeks as though I were meant to be eating 22 per day points the whole time! So, on weeks where I'd gone over flex points by 15, I was suddenly over flex points by 7 more points, 22 total. That's one point for each day that used to be 23 points a day but was now retroactively lowered to 22! That seems unfair to me. If I'd been eating perfectly each one of those weeks and went back to look at my history now, it would say I'd gone over each week by 7 points. A little annoying. But I suppose the WW organization wants to have somethign to point to if I come to them and say I"M NOT LOSING WEIGHT! Right. Because you're eating too much retroactively. Fine, fuck you, WW. Whatever, it's fine. Sort of motivates me more, actually. Like a little challenge.)

Okay. That's the update. I'll write again after next weigh-in probably. Which will have to occur at the gym since the ol' home scale died.

Neglect

Really wanted to update today and didn't get a chance. Maybe tonight? Hopefully soon. Plenty to share - things are going fine - could be better - life goes on. Update soon!

A challenge?

I've been eating relatively well. It can't go unnoticed that I've made some great choices lately and showed restraint in moments when I might not have in the recent past.

The scale is up. Weigh in is tomorrow. I worked out twice this week, not enough, but more than I've been doing. One was a nice long session too. And I did 250 situps another day. So not awful. Not great though. And late last night I had three chicken wings and some milkshake. :( Wasn't necessary. But I wanted it. So I had it.

I'm gonna keep on, of course. It's only minorly frustrating.

I worked out today for the first time in two weeks. That's an incredibly long stretch of time for me not to exercise, but due to illness and laziness, it wasn't happening. Today's workout was brief - 30 mins on the 'mill - but it felt good and it was all the time I had. I sincerely want to regain some footing in terms of regular exercise. It's so difficult with my very hectic schedule to find the time and the energy, but there was a time in my life where 5 days a week at the gym was the norm. I must have done nothing else but go to work and ride the subway to have had the time for that, but I know it used to happen one way or another. I'm not going to reach for that sort of improvement, not just yet, but I know I can get there 4 days a week. Maybe it could mean getting up early some days? Naaaah. Let's not jump to conclusions...

this is good

Weigh-in day! So I lost 2.8 pounds this past week, for a total loss of 5 pounds since I started this true recommitment on January 1. I'm pretty pleased about this. Granted, I gained a bit last week, but who cares when it just comes right off the following week.

I ended the week eating 15 more flex points than we're allowed. This is progress. The first week back on this program (doing the online thang) I ate 23 more than we're allowed. The second week, 19 more. And this past week, 15 more. That means I've improved each and every week. I haven't improved by leaps and bounds, but considering that I've been relatively unable to eat less than 40 flex points MORE than we're supposed to (for a total of 75 flex each week!) for the last several months, this is huge. I knew I just needed the structure of the online thing to kick me into gear. If I had the time and logistical headspace to go back to meetings, I probably would, but it's just not something I can feasibly take on right now. There's not enough hours in the day. But I still feel like I'm part of a larger community when I'm using the WW online system and I think that's really helpful to me. Buying the scale to keep at home is helpful too. Funny how sometimes in life one thing works for you and sometimes the exact opposite works. (There was a time when having a home scale was NOT a good idea for me.) I also like having the stuff all written down on the computer rather than by hand. I don't cheat as often, weirdly. Maybe the honeymoon will end with this novelty soon, but who cares. It's working for now.

I'm finally feeling better, after almost two weeks of feeling under the weather. This is some welcome relief. When we got back from Charleston, I felt like a new person. I'd forgotten what it was like to live in this city as a healthy human being - I was sick for so long and then I was out of town for 5 days. When we got home, I realized that I hadn't actually felt like myself as a New Yorker in weeks. It was so nice to be out in the city, not feeling nauseous as hell, wanting to do stuff and see people instead of go straight home and loll around in misery. I really want to keep up my health now. I hated being sick. And I was a big baby about it. But I'm seriously never ever sick. I haven't had an illness like that since maybe the 8th grade? No kidding. My body did not appreciate it. I'm going to focus on eating fruits and veggies and taking vitamins to avoid it happening again.

Now that I'm well again, my appetite has returned. Naturally. Welcome back, appetite. I did not miss you. But also my desire to workout has returned. I'm sad to say that I haven't formally exercised in two weeks. I was coming down with a sickness, experiencing the sickness, or getting over a sickness for most of those two weeks so it's forgivable, but it doesn't feel good to ol' hips, ass, and thighs. I'm eager to get back to the gym. I hope I have the energy for a good workout tonight. I think my body is going to be shocked that it's moving at a speed above 1 mile an hour.

I'm pretty pleased that I've been able to lose these 5 pounds by just changing my food consumption. I have exercised very very little since January 1. Probably a total of 4 days. But I have eaten less food and made good choices and worked on portion control and quitting eating when I'm full. That's a biggie. So I'm excited to see what happens when I add exercise back into the mix.

Goals this week:
4 workouts
continue to lower flex points consumption
more fruits and veggies

Things are right on track. I'm thrilled to have lost 5 pounds in less than a month. Only 22 more to go!

Naturally

...the scale was DOWN this morning two pounds from yesterday's number. Apparently the ol' bod just needed 24 more hours to let go of some of the water weight from being a lady. And had today been weigh in, I would have shown a loss, as opposed to a gain for the week. But today is not weigh in and the next weigh in isn't for another six days. Such is life. (But if today WERE weigh in, I would have lost a total of 5 pounds in two weeks! Wahoo! But it wasn't. So.) No big deal. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing (plus a little more exercise, minus a little more food) until next Tuesday and hope my efforts are reflected.

I have really had such a minimal appetite since this sickness hit. And I'm not complaining about that. Jen with a weak appetite is a RARE thing in this world and has probably only happened a combined 15 times in my whole life. So I'll take it. Yesterday I didn't want anything besides soup. And then when I got home and got some dinner, I suddenly couldn't taste anything (this flu seems to have morphed into a head/chest cold) which made eating that much less interesting. I'd also bought a some cookies at the deli so daniel and i could each have one and I didn't even have all mine because who wants calories they can't taste. So, yah.

Off to Charleston in a couple hours. Looking forward to the trip. I think that despite the fact that this is an HST trip, the likes of which usually includes drinking and staying up late, this will end up being a somewhat restful time for me. I'm going to opt to stay in on the nights everyone else goes out. I just can't risk getting sicker. I'm getting over this damn bug slowly but surely and I refuse to encounter setbacks. This illness has been the bane. So I got some magazines and a book to read and i'll bring my gym clothes so i can spend some time at the hotel gym if i'm feeling up to it and I think i'll generally lay low while every else gets their drink on. It's not ideal; of course i'd rather be well and be able to go out and have fun, but this will be just fine. We get back Saturday afternoon and I have Monday off work for MLK day, so I will have time to recoup once back in the city. It should be a nice long break from work, almost a week in fact, and I think the freetime will do me some good. Of course we'll be busy in Charleston. We have a tv interview and a radio interview and two shows to perform and other shows to see, but I plan to get some SLEEP also. :)

Feelin a little bit better today. It's nice.

one more thing...

Wanted to add, I'm going to Charleston tomorrow until Saturday with HST. So, the eating might be a challenge, as we'll be in the BBQ south and on "vacation" (sorta) and that always breeds eating-for-fun. But my appetite hasn't been stellar and I don't anticipate doing a lot of partying while we're away because I don't want to get sicker. So hopefully I'll be able to avoid any horrible dangerous food choices and I won't be drinking at all again because of sickness. I will keep my wits about me, regardless, and maybe get in some exercise at the hotel gym. :)

Minor Setback

So this morning was week 2, weigh in. I gained 1.2. This is okay with me. I lost 3.4 or whatever it was last week, so this is a minor setback and still gives me a total loss of 2.2 pounds in these two weeks and I'm okay with that.

First of all, I have been sick for the last week. As I mentioned in my last entry, the flu part of it didn't really come to fruition until Saturday, but I was feeling uneasy and not like myself starting on Monday of last week. So I only exercised Monday and Tuesday and then felt way too blech to do anything for the rest of the week. This is a shame, because the last two weeks have been pretty pathetic in terms of exercise - the first week was due to being busy and not interested in exercise, and the second week was due to sickness. So it's a wash. I hope to make up for it in the coming days, as I get better.

Also, I started my period yesterday morning. So I'm sure the weight gain has something to do with that as well. ALSO, because I was sick, not only was I not exercising, but I was literally not moving at all, practically, for about 72 hours straight. I walked to the deli once or twice to get some fresh air but that's about it. So I feel a little fatter than usual today. I mentioned that to Kevin, however, and he got very upset and told me not to say things like that about myself. Yikes. Sweet boyfriend.

Anyway, the point is, I could have done better this past week as well, but my heart was in it when the week began. Sickness and period derailed things a bit, but I'm not sweating it. As usual, I feel rejuved by the prospect of kicking off a fresh, new week, with 35 more flex points on the books and a whole 7 days in which to exercise and eat well.

I ate 19 points over flex this past week. Down from 23 the week before. It's not ideal, no, but the progress, although slight, cannot be overlooked. So that's 54 down from 58 (down from the 75 I was eating per week for a while). I feel good about that.

Practice makes fucking progress, right Weight Watchers?

Alright. Back to Tuesday.

sick

I have the flu. Truth be told, I've been feeling under the weather and not like myself since MONDAY. And today is Sunday.

Monday night I started to feel oddly nauseous. It was only for about an hour and it was accompanied by some exhaustion but I thought nothing of it, even though I'm not the type to ever get nauseous.

The next night I also felt weird and tired. Achy, crampy, nauseous. I actually stayed home from something because of it. But still thought it was no big deal. Wednesday night I did a show and felt awful during most of it - tired, sore tummy, just worn out. I opted to go straight home that night even though I had planned on and wanted to hang with friends for a bit. But I felt too blech. I kept getting nauseous, but only at night, weirdly. I even tried to avoid eating cheese all day one day (I eat a lot of dairy, I've realized) to see if it was some kind of allergy or something. Nope. That next night, like clockwork, I got sick and tired around 8pm. Except when I woke up the next morning, Friday, I felt sick in the morning too, so it had become an all day thing. I felt sick that whole day, into the evening - just nauseous, headache, back ache, exhausted. Kevin insisted I go to the doctor the next day (I don't have insurance until it kicks in on Feb 15 so we went to the urgent care place by my house). $75 later the doc said "I think it's the flu." I was like hmmm...i don't know...wait a minute...of course it is. I feel like crap. It's a virus so no meds can help. Just tylenol, rest, and fluids. Sigh.

I had to do a show and a rehearsal that night though, Saturday, which just about took it out of me completely. I went home and slept for 12 hours and woke up feeling the worst I've felt yet. Whole body ache, exhausted, hurts to move, sore neck, coughing, sore lungs. Blech. No temperature or puking, just general malaise big time. I'm supposed to go out of town on Wednesday night to do some shows in Charleston. I'm going to rest hard until then. I might skip work tomorrow. We'll see.

I haven't gotten to exercise at all during the second half of this week. I got in two mediocre workouts early in the week when I was feeling okay but I just haven't felt up to it. And now I definitely don't. That sucks.

Food has been okay though. I don't have much of an appetite.

Back to bed...

Chug chug

Chugging along. All's well. I'm doing my best to eat reasonably and I've had a couple workouts this week. Nothing stellar, but like I said before, I think slow and steady is the name of the game this time around. I'm going to go to the gym again at lunch today and do some much needed stretching and a little light lifting. My plan for the day is to eat lightly so that I can have dinner and a glass of wine with Daniel tonight. We're slotted to hang out, but I don't want to go over my points, so I'll do my best to avoid it.

I'm feeling sick today. I've been feeling sick the past few days. Somehow it's not impacting my desire to eat though. What could? Nothing.

Weigh in...

Well, lovely news. After a workout yesterday and relatively mindful eating in hopes of correcting some damage done over the weekend, I lost 3.4 pounds this week! This is good news.

Again, I didn't really have a stellar week, but it wasn't a terrible week either. I ended up eating 59 flex points...which is 24 more than they want me to have, but about 15 less than I've been eating lately, so it's progress. I didn't workout nearly as much as I like to either, but I got in two good cardio sessions (and I plan to improve that this week) so I feel like it's a start.

Like I've said a few times, it's really nice to be back within the WW system, tracking online and being immersed in the lingo and the rewards system. It's a community like any other so it's nice to feel like I've returned to my roots in terms of weight loss. And it works as well as it always has. I'm really pleased with this loss. I might even eventually return to meetings just to mix things up.

I am standing at the beginning of a whole new week...35 new flex points, 7 days in which to decide to exercise and make good food choices. Another thing I've always loved about WW is the renewal process that occurs at the beginning of each week. It really feels like you hit reset and have another shot. So I'm excited to do well this week.

As I said yesterday, my goals for this week are: exercise 4 times, stay within 35 flex. That seems pretty reasonable.

I had a sensible breakfast this morning...but I just now had a cookie...so I hope to get some fruits and vegs in at lunchtime. And hopefully a workout later this evening.

It's a fucking processssssss.

I didn't do a great job, this weekend, foodwise. I didn't do a terrible job either. I made a couple poor choices and I'm 20 points over my flex. This is STILL an improvement. And seeing it written on the website tracker all in red like it is makes me want to work that much harder not to do it again.

I ate some pizza late Saturday night. I'm not sure why I did it other than everyone else wanted it and then there it was, after being delivered, sitting in my kitchen, and everyone else was eating it, and it looked soooo fuckingggg goooood. So i had a piece and a half. Yup. Whatever. My weaknesses, I've realized, with this food stuff involve when "everyone else is." How are you supposed to sit around a table of your dear friends, who're all eating fries and nachos, and not have some?! Like, that's fine when you're just starting out losing weight, but you can't do that for your whole lifetime! All you can do it curb how MUCH of it you eat and what you eat the rest of the day to counteract it. But it's just inhumane to avoid all bad foods. I suppose that's the beauty of WW. So I don't feel like I've failed, but I do feel like this is a process and I need to train myself with some better skills for avoiding unnecessary overeating.

As my weigh-in is tomorrow morning, I will have only worked out two days this past week when all is said and done. That's not ideal either. But it gives me a good jumping off point for next week.

I have both food and exercise demons to battle this next week. This past week hasn't been a defeat or a victory, it's been a good learning experience. I made some good choices, some good changes, and there's plenty more to do. My goals for next week are: exercise 4 times and stay within 35 flex points. I didn't pay money for this damn WW online membership for nothing!

breakin it down

REMINDER: I’m blogging about things not related to weight loss here: www.jenc.tumblr.com. Go there instead of here for normalcy.

Things are moving along quite nicely with my new approach to losing 27 pounds. Being back in the WW system, by joining the program online, was a good move for me at this particular point.

Hang with me while I break it down and perhaps risk repeating myself:

After losing almost all the weight I needed to lose by attending meetings pretty religiously for the first 3 or 4 years I was involved in WW, I haven’t attended meetings regularly in probably over two years. I have, for the last two years or so, been weighing myself pretty regularly, writing down what I eat every day, exercising as often as I am psychologically able without making myself hate exercise and resent my whole life, and doing my best to stay on track and eat within my points each week. It hasn’t been simple. And I’ve definitely eaten more than my allotted points each week. To my credit, I wasn’t terribly focused on losing more weight. And I also wasn’t doing a ton to combat weight gain if and when it would occasionally knock on my door. I got fired from my job and then I feel in love, both of which impacted my eating habits, I would venture to guess.

So despite my “best” (I put that in quotes because they haven’t been the best) efforts to the contrary, I’ve definitely gained some weight in the last two years as I’ve focused less on the number on the scale and practiced living my life as a thinner person who doesn’t attend a weekly meeting because she used to be fat. I needed to go there with it. To return to the land of those people who don’t go to weight loss meetings. And I’m glad I did it. It has given me invaluable perspective to learn to be a healthy eater without the scale as my compass. It has certainly been a balancing act. And frankly I’m sort of happy to have put back on a little bit of the weight over two years because it means a.) I didn’t put a lot of it back on, only a little tiny bit! Which is great! Because that means I wasn’t perfect in my habits, I experienced failure, but I’m still a normal weight. That’s a wonderful thing. I wasn’t normal for a long time. So to want to lose 20 pounds feels like nothing. And b.) I have been forced to become comfortable with this body, with being imperfect, which was a lesson I needed to learn the entire time I was fat and the entire time I was losing weight. I needed to learn that it’s okay to feel good about oneself if one’s body isn’t up to Hollywood standards. And I’ve learned that. Being imperfect has helped me to accept being imperfect.

Plus my boyfriend likes my big booty.

And now I’d like to swing the balance back in the other direction for a little while. I’m confident and content being me and now I’d love to exercise and healthy-eat my way back to a slightly more toned me that can fit into a lot of cute stuff! So that means giving those habits a bit more focus than I’ve been giving them in the last couple years.

Joining WW online and buying a new scale (I threw the old one out a long time ago) is the most formal effort I’ve made in recent memory to committing myself to getting back to my fighting weight, besides starting to blog again about the effort.

I’ve already seen nice results on the scale this week alone. (Granted, I documented my new “starting weight” when I was rocking some serious after-several-bad-eating-days bloat that was bound to disappear quickly, but hey, why not pad my success a little bit.) And it’s lovely to be accountable to the online system, which seems so much more “real” than just jotting stuff down in my own personal food journal. ADDITIONALLY, having all my tracking done online as opposed to on paper in my purse has been an unexpected stress reducer. I don’t need more charts and graphs and papers and numbers and lists and notations and slips of paper to worry about. I will make myself crazy with that shit. It’s nice that it’s all in one place now. I sound like an ad for WW. I’m not. I’m just rejoicing in my honeymoon period. We’ve all been there before upon a rejoining experience. I’m in the phase where I can do no wrong.

However, I haven’t been perfect this week. All my flex are gone. And I have through Monday to eat 23 points a day. It’s gonna be tough. I worked my ass a week or two ago and was only able to reign in the flex points per week to 55 (down from a habitual 75 that I’d gotten up to) so I anticipate some hunger in my future. Granted it’s been a tough few weeks of holiday and wedding eating (little cousin got married at Christmastime) so perhaps without all the temptation I’ll be able to come out on top. (I should add that losing the 27 pounds I want to lose will actually put me below my lowest ever recorded weight when I was losing the first time. I had about 7 pounds left to go when I quit losing, so my current goal includes losing those too.)

I also didn’t exercise until today. But I was very good while I was away in the midwest for a week. In the interest of counterbalancing the food intake, I worked out several times during the week. So my body hasn’t seemed to mind that I’ve taken it easy since I returned to New York. It was essential, mentally, that I not push things. I made my triumphant return to the gym today and got in some treadmill time. I’ll make a quick stop tomorrow for some light lifting. We’ll do this in small doses. There’s no reason to work my ass off like I used to when I was 15 pounds lighter. I’ll reserve that for the next time I’m 15 pounds lighter. In the meantime, I’m just going to do what it takes to have this week look good on the books. I think slow and steady might win this race. Excuse me, this journey. It’s not a race. ;)

Here we go, 08.

So I'm back in the real world. Back from the land of engagement parties and weddings and food-as-gifts and christmas and new years and one year anniversary with boyfriend. And they ALL involved food.

There were some areas in which I did a tremendous job. I exercised preemptively and avoided certain foods and overeating at certain times. But there were certainly areas in which I strayed and I'mn up anywhere from 2-4 pounds to prove it.

I was seriously up against a lot of food obstacles.

So, it is with resolve that I've decided to begin 2008 with a little bit of structure. I spent the $65 and joined WW online for 3 months. I think it's a good investment. It's actually a huge relief not to be tracking my food intake by hand. I'm on a computer a bunch during a day, so I can certain keep track of things this way. Plus, there's something really agonizing about going over points when you have to enter it into the WW website, as opposed to writing it in your own personal food journal. I joined yesterday and I'm feeling good about it.

I still ate pretty freely yesterday. It was my and Kevin's one year anniversary. So I felt justified in enjoying myself.

I also bought a scale two days ago. I think it will be nice to have that accountability around the house too. I really would like to lose about 27 pounds, if I'm being honest. So I'm gonna reset my mind to the task.

Getting back on track these past two days, which is really how long I've been trying to set my mind to it since I returned from Foodland, has been relatively difficult. Today I returned to work, which usually brings some structure, but I went home for lunch where Kevin surprised me with a slice of pizza and some chicken. And I've been nibbling on nuts and chocolate at work! Gaaah.

I also won't have a chance to workout today.

I will reign in the eating for the rest of today, it will be a scratch and a claw to do it, but I will. And I'll workout tomorrow in hopes to counteracting some of this.

I feel good about my decisions to get some structure back in my life in terms of weight loss, if losing weight is what I want. Now I just have to abide by those structures, which is always a ramping-up process. Day 2. I think I'll be having sushi for dinner.

yessss

Feelin really great this morning about all this. Feeling slim and healthy and that's so nice.

I had another good workout yesterday, albeit short. I got in some intense cardio (walked, but on a 7.5 incline!) for 20 mins and then did some lifting. I also ate really well yesterday. I came in only 2 points over, which I had to spare from flex (I'm at 22 flex for the week consumed so far. This is good.)and despite being rather hungry as I was falling asleep, there was nothing whatsoever to eat in the house so I just let my tummy growl, had some water, and went to bed.

I'm going to workout again today. And hopefully Friday and Saturday as well. Those are my intentions. If they don't pan out, I won't sweat it, but it's nice to know that I've made the time and set the intention for each day. I'm leaving for the midwest on Sunday morning. I'll be home (well, not home in Chicago, but in Southern Illinois and in Kansas, for Christmas and my cousin's wedding, respectively) for a week. Then I come back next Sunday and will have Monday and Tuesday off before I have to return to work. It will be a nice break - might be busy and hectic at points, but I plan to take advantage of the several days of downtime that WILL be available to me here and there. And the festivities of the wedding will be awesome also. (Big family, big party. Can't wait.)

The way I see it, there are four days in the next couple weeks that will pose challenges. This Saturday night (which is an intimate little gathering just before we go away for the holiday), Christmas Day, my cousins wedding (and let's be honest, that could bleed into more than one day of challenge), and New Years. It's a lot. But I'm not going to stress about it now, I'll just take it one day at a time, deal with each event as it arises, and keep exercising to off set things. One day at a time.

Today, bagel for breakfast (work breakfast - but I'll scoop out the bagel and use lite cream cheese), apple slices for a snack, lean cuisine for lunch, nuts for a snack in the afternoon, and whatever dinner will bring.

power hour

Well, I'm feeling much better about things today.

First of all, when I got to the gym last night, I peeked at the scale, despite my worry that it would be through the roof. But I'd rather know than not know, I guess. Luckily it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be.

I had a pretty good day of eating by the time I got to the gym. I was pretty low on points though - cutting back on the amount of food I'm eating in a day has been harder than I thought. And since I'm used to eating 75 extra points in a week, instead of 35, I'm hungry a lot as I try to scale things back. But I arrived at the gym last night determined to have a good workout despite my hunger and exhaustion.

And I ended up doing 60 minutes of cardio! I haven't done 60 minutes of cardio in I-don't-know-how-long, and there was a time when i was doing it all the time. So it felt really good to remember those days and pay homage to them last night. The workout felt excellent and has inspired me to keep pushing myself. I remembered last night that it's better that I log the minutes than the intensity right now. Yes, the intensity counts, and I'm never slacking on that fuckin treadmill, but if I can take it down 2 speeds or lower the incline and stay on it for another 20 minutes, it's all for the better. So that's what I did and I'm glad I did. I did some light lifting at the end too, just because I had the time. I feel good today.

It's rare that I have almost two uninterrupted hours available to me in a day to spend at the gym. Last night was an anomaly. And I hope to find more days like it. I was reminiscing while I was plugging away on the 'mill last night about the days when I went to the gym after work, worked out until I felt like stopping, and went home. At the time it seemed boring, but I'd pay for just one of those nights each week now. Things have gotten very busy in the last year...Easy to gain ten pounds when you go from constant exercise to not-as-constant.

I ended the night with an egg salad sandwich that I grabbed at starbucks, which seemed to be the best choice out of what was available - I was SO hungry and rushing to get to a show - but it ended up being 11 disappointing points. Oh well, lesson learned. Then I saw Kevin's improv show and then I had two gin and sodas at the bar. I don't think I finished the second one either, so that was good. (I decided to order a higher quality gin than I usually get, which made for a much more enjoyable sipping experience. I think I might adopt that method from now on, when possible. I drink less that way and I enjoy the buzz more.)

When Kevin and I got home it was very late and I was very tired and hungry. I had a small glass of OJ, some nuts, and a piece of toast. Much better than going to the deli and getting something awful for me. I ended the day using about 10 FPs, but I'm okay with that. I feel really good about what I did yesterday.

Today, I had a healthy breakfast and a healthy snack. I will go to the gym on my lunch break. I don't really want to and I'm really super fucking awfully tired from being up so late, but I think I can manage to do 20 mins of cardio and some light lifting, just to keep the psychological momentum going.

I will eat in at lunch - something frozen for 6 or 7 points - and then I'll grab something healthy for dinner, perhaps sushi? perhaps a chipotle salad? in between rehearsal and the show tonight.

I'm excited for this to be another OP day.

SO.

Whew. I've been avoiding posting.

Because last week ended up ril ugly, y'all. Ril ugly. It's nice to be back in the blog-it-out community though because I feel a lot better about committing the sins I committed and much more capable of returning to a place of piety, knowing that I have the support of my gals.

Things were moving along reasonably when Friday rolled around. I was more than 35 flex in the hole for the week, but it wasn't close to the 70ish flex I'd been using in the past few weeks.

I went to the gym during my lunch break and prepared myself for a night out. I lifted at the gym and tried to make good food choices during the day. Then I met Dan and Kev for drinks. I was pretty hungry, but I had an apple before drinks to help tide me over. Then we had nuts with the drinks. Then Kev and I went to see a show and only had time to grab a slice before hand. Not ideal, but it was all that was available. Then I had some gelato later on for no good reason and spent the rest of the night resisting the urge to have a second dinner. No joke. I ended the day 11 points over, to make a grand total of 59 flex used for the week so far! And there were still two whole days left before weigh-in day! I was feeling pretty defeated about getting up close to 70 flex used again, but I was determined to make it through the week without getting to 70 flex points. Foolish.

Because then Saturday happened. Ugh. I started out with good intentions - had a relatively healthy breakfast with Kevin at a diner before we both had to go run around fulfilling committments all day long. After I left him and started my full day of activities, I got pretty peckish but decided to get a lower-cal spinach wrap at starbucks. It wasn't enough though. When I finished it, I just kept eating. There were candies where I was rehearsing and I had a handful of those, I finished Faryn's chinese food, only a few bites, but still. I also drank the latte I'd gotten at starbucks and had a small cookie (ugh) and I just started to feel like I was losing control. I didn't want to keep eating, so I vowed to make good choices for the rest of the night, even though I still had so much day ahead of me. (More rehearsal, a show to perform, and then a christmas party to attend.) I did pretty well until we ended up at this christmas party around 11pm - and then I just fucked around. I drank and smoked and ate and ate and ate. I was probably a lot less than I thought it was but it FELT like a lot. And it felt like I was just mindlessly, anxiously eating. I had bites of EVERYTHING. Many bites. Blech.

I have to walk into those events with SOME kind of plan or all hell breaks loose. It's really ugly.

I didn't even write down what I ate on Sunday. I was feeling so incredibly disappointed in myself for Saturday night. Sunday basically went to shit too. Normal breakfast, then some nachos for lunch (?!?!) which I shared and didn't eat too many of, but still. THat would have been fine if we hadn't gone to another gathering after that where I had a zillion cookies and a fuckin brownie. Then we had to go see a friend's stand-up act because he was auditioning for a tv show and needed a supportive crowd and Kevin ordered fries and I had some of those too.

All in all, when I write it all out, it seems a lot less horrific than I've been letting myself believe, but it was still very mindless, very anxious eating. And it was mostly bourne out of scenarios that I didn't plan ahead for or scenarios where I let a craving or a desire to munch get the very best of me and I just gave in and let go. And I didn't exercise to combat it either. Also, the two times I overate the most were at the two parties. Sometimes I get anxious about making small talk. And you can't small talk if your mouth is full, so I anxiously eat. Interesting to learn about oneself.

There were definitely some small victories in there somewhere, so I'll remind myself that it could have been a LOT worse. At no point did i just "give up." So there's that. (And there was a two-drink minimum at the stand-up club and I only had coffee and diet soda instead of alcohol.)

I got back to it yesterday, though, and put my nose to the grindstone. I decided I need to really work on avoiding a ton of sugar, especially early on in the day, because it just causes me to eat more and more sugar all day long. I did well yesterday for the most part. No exercise, but smart food choices. I also went to the grocery store so I can eat breakfast and lunch in again this week. Glad I did that. Feels much simpler to stay on track that way, plus cheaper which is important right now. I'll go to the gym tonight and hopefully be able to spend a good hour plus there.

I started my period this morning/late last night and I'm so glad I did. I was having the worst PMS yesterday - I was clumsy and moody and irritable and I felt like shit. I still feel pretty crappy and exhausted today, but now I know there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'm hoping things will only get better from here.

I definitely don't want to go to the gym tonight, I want to go home and sleep. But I'll go and it will feel good and that will be that.

It's the holidays. And I am going to promise myself that I will workout as often as I can, and eat as well as I can. But I can't promise miracles. I can't promise I will get to exercise every day or eat like a saint for the next week. It's just too difficult this time of year to do it all. I know, though, that being this mindful is really going to help me. It will be good to be home in the midwest because my family eats very mindfully and I always eat well when I'm there. Plus there's plenty of opportunity for exercise, since we're a family of health nuts and people will be going on jogs and getting to the gym, etc. Things will be a little crazy, though, too, because besides the actual holiday, my little cousin is getting married on December 29, then Kev and I have our one year anniversary on January 1, plus New Year's Eve. So there's plenty to challenge me. But my focus is to be MINDFUL. To exercise when I can and make really good choices when I can and be strong and remember that I will feel so much better if 2008 rolls around and I don't have to start all over.

I need a nap.

p.s. I have no idea what the scale says. I refused to step on it yesterday.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggghhhh

I'm having a hard time with shit today. I'm grumpy, I exercised and now I feel worse rather than better, I can't eat enough to feel satisfied and I'm having a very hard time staying within points each day. Grrrrr.

I guess this is just part of it. Sometimes you have to kick and scream.

I didn't workout last night. I didn't have it in me. I went at lunch today but only did a little bit of pilates and then I lifted. I didn't have time for the cardio. I will get some good cardio in this weekend, fo sho'. And hopefully one more light lifting session also.

For some reason, I jumped on the scale at the gym and it was bigtime up. But I think several things: 1.) who gives a fuck. fuck that noise. 2.) it was midday and i'd already eaten plus i had sushi last night 3.) i'm convinced that scale at that particular gym is always high. fuck that noise too. So perhaps that's contributing to my mood.

I will not come in at or under 35 flex this week. More like 50 flex. That's not awful. That's a far cry from the 70, 73, 78 (?!) I've done in the last few weeks. So I will take that as a good sign and keep plugging away. But I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to do it my first week back. I did have a holiday party, but it wasn't that gluttonous whatsoever. Perhaps this is weight gain from LAST week's holiday party (at the theater), where I did infact overeat to the hilt.

There's also been a ton of holiday sweet stuff floating around the office and the season itself makes it very tempting to cozy up with a glass or 4 of wine and eat crap with my honey. But I'm fighting it HARD. We went out last night but got sushi and only shared one bottle of saki (still went over points, but UGH I"M TRYING!). Yesterday and today have seen the likes of a large box of amazing, rich, huge cookies at work. I've had probably about 1.5 or 2 cookies in the last two days, which is showing incredible restraint. They sit right by my head all day long and I want many many of them. But I had half of one yesterday, saved the other half for today, and took another few break-off pieces at a couple other points. Not awful. Doing my best. Plus! Oh! Today I was going to order a big sloppy eggwhites sandwich on a bagel! with cheese! and then I just closed the website (online ordering available) and just didn't order it! I didn't want to spend the money or waste the calories, even though I'd already picked the whole thing out. I've been eating in this week for breakfast and lunch, which means I have to have made some progress in caloric control because I'm certain that my 5 point frozen burrito is better for me than whatever sandwich I order and call 8 points when it's probably really 16. I mean, having the real nutrition info is half the battle.

I guess I"m just frustrated that I haven't been able to navigate this perfectly. But that's silly. I'll get there. And I have to remind myself that it's really not about that stupid number. Fuck that gym scale. And I'm not even really in this for the number. I'm in it to get into smaller jeans!

I'm going to bump up my weight lifting next week and start doing some heavier weights. I'm pretty consistent with weight training, but what that means is that my body is very used to the routine I've been doing and the weights I've been using etc. Sometimes I try to make little changes here and there, but I don't think it's enough. I've lifted pretty consistently for several years now, but over the summer I was taking weeks and weeks off at a time, so when I started back up, I sort of went back to basics and did some simple routines. But I haven't really varied them up since then, even though I've been back lifting for about three months. So next week I'll change it up. I'll lift signficantly heavier weights than I'm using right now and do less reps. And the following week, I'll lift signifcantly lighter weights than I'm using right now and do many reps. Just to mix it up. I also want to explore some new exercises, new machines, etc, but I think I'll try this first idea first and see what happens.

And the last thing I've been thinking is that I can always eat more fruits and vegs, more lean protein and LESS SUGAR (most of all less sugar). Since Dr. Oz's You On A Diet info came out re: sugar, I've seriously cut back. I make choices based on sugar in take all the time and whenever I can avoid it, I refuse to have any sugar before the afternoon. I don't drink sugar in my coffee so that's not tough, but I won't do cereals with sugar (did you know that Kashi Go Lean Crunch has 14 grams of sugar per serving!??! - you're only supposed to have 3 or 4 grams for breakfast!), or anything else that I think is harboring hidden sugars. But I can always do more. i.e. Not eating the cookies and sweets that are hanging out around the office. Also, perhaps I can start drinking a protein drink (a low cal, low sugar one) on the days I lift. I think I could use it.

So I guess that's it. I still don't weigh-in until Monday, and I know there's no real reason to be a crab apple about shit. (Perhaps it's PMS related...) This post was sort all over the place, but it did help me remember that I've made some excellent progress this week. And that there's plenty I can do to feel like I'm making even more progress.

Blah blah blaaaaaaaaaaaah grr.

Big weekend ahead, btw. A lot going on. I"m hoping it will make it easier to eat well than harder. I'll grab a drink tonight with Dan after work and a light din with Kevin before we go see a show. Tomorrow is super fuckin busy. And Sunday is busy too. I'll get in another workout and avoid the sugar!

blah blah

I could sleep for days. Quick posting - worked out again yesterday, did some cardio on my lunch break, felt good. Ate mostly well all day, but got SUPER hungry around midnight and ordered a salad. At least it was a salad. I had a few of Kevin's fries too, and saved the rest of the salad for lunch today, but it did put me over points. No big deal. Still making good progress this week as opposed to prior weeks. My flex points this week will not be anywhere near 70, so that's good to know.

I'm sleepy today. I would like to take a night off exercise, but I don't know if I'll get to go tomorrow or Saturday either, so I might just have to suck it up and go tonight. It depends on a series of factors. It's incredibly snowy here today, but sometimes I like being in the gym getting all sweaty and gross when it's yucky outside. Cuz all I'm gonna do is go home and veg out anyway.

I need to earn some points back too, so maybe that's another good reason to go workout. I was doing well today, but then a HUGE thing of cookies came out. I only had half of one, but I wanted more. And someone put some incredible onion rings in the kitchen and I had one of those as well. DELICIOUS OMG. I also might have had a bit too much feta cheese with that salad last night and today. But I'm still keeping things in check.

Kevin might take me out to dinner tonight, but I'll ask for Sushi, I think, and avoid the fried stuff.

The holidays at the work place really get me. It's tough to navigate an office full of incredible, expensive-and-therefore-amazing sweets.

I'm gonna get plenty of rest tonight, if it kills me. I need the sleep badly and I have a very busy weekend ahead, so it's important that I go into it well rested. Otherwise I will eat what I want and not exercise. And neither of those things are happening. Not this time.

Just wanted to remind you...

...that I'm blogging about food and exercise on this particular URL right now. If you want to read my normal-human-who-isn't-obsessing-about-calories blog, the link is on the right. It says "My Regular Blog".

Go there. It's better there. I promise.

Don't burn your eyes reading about the dieting stuff unless you want to. And I wouldn't recommend it.

all things considered

All things considered, that went pretty well last night. I definitely didn't stick to the exact plan I had in mind, but having made the plan to begin with really helped me mentally during the party. And luckily, I was able to make some good choices (and not feel like a fatty) while still having a nice time.

I didn't even realize that this being a fancy Park Avenue apartment party, there wouldn't even BE tons of unhealthy food laying all over the place! Duh! These are rich people. They have salmon on wafers at these sorts of parties. They have waiters who pass the hors d’oeuvres, so you can't really take more than one at a time without feeling like a jerk, and you're at the mercy of the kitchen who decides how often and how much food is coming out. Thank god.

They still had some tasty stuff...chicken and mango salsa on toast, mini grilled cheeses, mini hamburgers (omg), mini pizzas, something with salmon....this all had fancier names that I can't remember, btw. And they had some bowls of nuts lying around that I definitely helped myself to. I had a few of each of the hors d'oeuvres and a few glasses of wine (they keep pouring for you and I'm sure that glass was refilled at least once that I didn't authorize, but oh well).

The best part was that when the DESSERT TRAYS (ugh) were being passed, I only had one small fruit tart thing and left the rest...there were eclairs and chocolate thingies and I just declined. I'd had more than enough sugar. That was a major victory.

So I left the party feeling as though I'd been really successful, but then I met Daniel and Randy downtown and I ordered a small personal pizza with sausage on it. I was starving. Ha. So I ate that. Yup, the whole thing. But I don't regret it. I think I didn't a pretty fantastic job of navigating the party, I had plenty of veggies and healthy things at the party, and the pizza, although a tipsy indulgence, was very thin crusted and took the edge off the booze.

I woke up desperate for water so I've been chuggin it and I had a very healthy breakfast when I got to work. I will REALLY avoid the sugar today. There are more fucking cookies out (people send so much shit to us this time of year) and they don't even look good to me. Blech. There are lovely clementines in the kitchen so if I'm desperate for sugar, I'll have one of those and a small dark chocolate square.

Lunch will be a frozen meal, either a panini (6 points) or a burrito (5 points), and then I'll have an afternoon snack, perhaps some popcorn and a piece of fruit. Dinner will be whatever I can grab because I have a rehearsal and a show back to back tonight and won't be done with everything until around 11. Hopefully I can find something cheap and simple and healthy - maybe soup, maybe a salad? We'll see.

I'm going to exercise again on my lunch break today; hopefully I can get 30 mins of cardio in. I think I pretty much cleared out my flex points for the week last night, and one of my goals this week is to stay within 35 flex points, so the rest of the week is gonna have to involved very judicious food choices and plenty of exercise to earn those APs. It's hard to go from eating around 30 points a day to eating around 23 points a day, but that's what I have to do. These first weeks back are always the hardest. And frankly, I probably underestimated some of my food intake, pointswise, last night, so I think it's better to just call it a week in terms of the flex bank and move on. Yup, I'm dieting. Yup. I am. That's just the way it goes.

The only other challenges this week will be drinks with Daniel on Friday night and a Christmas party late Saturday night. Daniel will only have about 35 minutes to hang out on Friday night so I can probably just get away with having one low-cal drink with him. No problem there. And the party on Saturday night will be easy to navigate if I stick to sparkling water and we don't stay too long. Yup, I'm dieting. Sorry, world. This is how it has to be for now. I ALWAYS enjoy myself with food and drink. I'm taking a break for a little while.

I'm feelin really really good about being back on track this way, even if I did eat 25 points extra last night. I'm loving blogging about it right now and I'm loving being accountable. I woke up this morning feeling and looking good. Awesome.

I'm hoping to pick up a scale some time this week so it's easier for me to check in.

All good things...

The Calm Before The...More Calm

Tonight's party will not be a storm of food and drinks for me. It simply will not. I know I can do this - go and enjoy myself and be calm and relaxed and enjoy the music and the people and some nice sips on some expensive fancy alcohol and not leave feeling like a pudg-o-meter.

I've done pretty well today. Got in my lunchtime workout, which felt great. Was able to squeeze in 20 mins of cardio AND all the lifting I wanted to do. No abs or serious stretching to speak of, but I'll take what I can get.

I have eaten well today also, except for three small cookies I had earlier and several chocolate covered cherries. That's about 7 points in sweets! Yikes. That's plenty of sugar. Perhaps I will not have any sweets at the party. I just had a snack of popcorn and a clementine, so I'm feeling pretty good.

I just wanted to check in for myself and my accountability. I'm eager to see a loss when I weigh-in on Monday, so navigating this party like a reasonable human being is an important part of that.

(Also! I have a new motivation for losing these 20 pounds...I'm getting new headshots in January! Those are expensive and I want them to look GOOD.)

okay, okay...

...So, good day yesterday, for the most part. I feel pretty good about having a renewed committment to this stuff. Like I said yesterday, it's not like there's a TON that needs to change, they're just tweaks and adjustments to my lifestyle. I feel a renewed sense of resolve about making that happen.

I did not workout yesterday. I really wanted to and I would have felt really great today if I'd gotten to, but it just didn't happen. I wasn't able to go on my lunch break (which always ends up being not much of a workout anyway because I only have about 25 to 30 mins to do anything once I get to the gym) because it was very busy yesterday at work, and I had an improv practice right after work, which ran late. I was partially planning to go after that practice, but I didn't get home until 11, so, no waaay.

I also didn't get to step on a scale yesterday, so I don't exactly know where we're starting from here, numberwise. I think we'll just call it 168 and be done with it. Could be higher, could be lower, who knows. It's right around 168.

But I did do pretty well foodwise. I had an eggwhite omelet for breakfast, soup and half a bagel with PB for lunch, a couple pieces of amazing chocolate that someone sent to my office, some popcorn in the afternoon, a souvlaki sandwich for dinner, and then, the one thing I really didn't need: a nice big chunk of a cinnabon. (I bought one for Daniel because he loves them. In retrospect, I knew I was going to have a bite of it. But I really did buy it for him!)

So that cinnabon put me over my points for the day by about 4, but that's okay. All part of the learning curve.

Today will be a bit challenging, but I'm up for it. Our office holiday party is tonight; my boss it throwing it at his very fancy Park Avenue apartment. So I'm CERTAIN there will be amazing snacks and high quality alcohol. I guess I should make a plan before I go.

I have already had a very sensible breakfast - whole wheat english muffin with PB and a banana, and yesterday I bought several healthy frozen meals (did you know Kashi now makes frozen entrees? whaaat?!) from a gourmet grocery store nearby, so I plan to "eat-in" all week long for breakfast and lunch. It will be easy to keep the points to a minimum today if I eat one of those frozen lunches, so I shall. I also plan to go to the gym on my lunch break. It will have to be a very quick workout, perhaps some cardio and some weight training, which will be a better calorie-burn than just the cardio alone. It will have to be very quick though.

Then, tonight, I will make sensible choices at the party. I will not eat dinner tonight and simply use those calories on the bitesize stuff at the party. I will also save room for three drinks, max. Probably gin and soda, since that will be low in calories. Maybe I'll have a glass of red wine if the mood strikes me. But no need to go crazy, it's still an office party for the most part. I will try to have a couple glasses of water too. I can practice enjoying the high quality of the food and alcohol rather than the quantity. (Even if it is free. Ugh, delicious, abundant, free food and drink. Yup, I've got my work cut out for me.)

My other tactic will be to have a piece of fruit or some popcorn just before we go so I'm not ravenous (and someone just put a big bowl of clementines in the office kitchen, sweet), and then when we get there, I'll have one taste of food, just to get it out of my system, and then I'll wait a little while before I have more. If I get into a frenzied eating pattern early on, it's a dead zone. I could easily graze my way through this whole night and end up 20 points in the hole. That will not happen tonight, so I just have to decide not to do it. I can gravitate toward the healthier options too, as opposed to fried or buttery stuff. There's no reason to stuff myself. Tomorrow, I want to feel really good about how I navigated the party.

So:
snack before we leave
3 glasses of alcohol throughout evening
intersperse with water
choose healthier foods
be judicious about how much I eat by tasting early on and then waiting a while

(If you're not into this weight loss thing and you're reading this right now, you're probably shocked, dismayed, and baffled at the extent to which I'm discussing these details. Yup. This is how it has to be. Trust me. It doesn't always have to be this way, but if you're trying to lose weight and regain control of your eating habits, it has to be this way for a little while. If you were once a fat girl, the likelihood of you attending a party with delicious food and drink and overeating to the hilt is pretty high. If you want to avoid it, you gotta do the pep talk. Weird but true, weird but true.)

Okay that's that. Feelin pretty good about this plan. Feelin' pretty good about getting back on track. Perhaps a WW meeting IS in my future, just to help solidify things further...hmmmm...we'll see.

Today, it's a weight loss blog.

I’m gonna write about weight loss for a little bit. If you want to read my regular blog go to www.jenc.tumblr.com. (Link on the right.)

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post of this nature. In fact, I don’t think I”ve ever done this on this blog at all. When I first became a blogger, it was for the sole purpose of blogging about my weight loss experience. I lost 113.8 pounds and I started the blog well into that journey, after I discovered many other weight loss blogs that I read during that time were key parts of my system of support and ultimate success. I wanted to give back to people in that same way and create an interesting way for myself to be accountable.

I’m telling you right now that if you don’t already know me as a girl who attended weight watchers and wrote in detail about her food intake on the internet, you might want to quit reading right now. It can get very very tedious to read about other peoples food and exercise neuroses and really only those of us who are also going through or have gone through the same neurotic weight loss experience can relate. So if you don’t want to read details about how much I weigh, what I did for exercise yesterday, and how fat or thin I feel, leave now. I mean, I’m really begging you, leave now. Because it’s embarrassing enough for me to write this stuff as it is. But I want to become more accountable for my actions in this department and this is how I did it the last time, so this is an approach I’m going to take again.. Okay, enough disclaiming. I’m not sure how long this will be a weight loss blog, but today it is. Eff you if you don’t like it.

So the lowest weight I ever got to was 150.6, I think. And that was pretty good. I could have stood to lose 5 or 10 more pounds, but doesn’t every one feel that way?

I think I’m hovering around 168 right now. Which is NOT a weight I want to be. Granted, the 150 is a number I only hovered around for a few days, maybe a week, and my body rested more comfortably around 155 during that time (which was October 2005, btw – yikes!). So in the last two years (yikes!!!), I’ve put on about 15 pounds, give or take. That’s not awful, but it’s not great, and it’s not a trend that can continue. Oh HELL no.

What I want to do now is get back down to 150. Where I go from there will be up to God, frankly, because 150 was HARD work. But I know I can get back down there at least. I felt a lot better at that weight. And I will relish it even more the second time around.

I only exercised ONCE this past week. Despite this, I’ve been pretty good and pretty consistent in the last few months with my exercise. It certainly hasn’t been the caliber of exercise I was used to back in the day, but it’s been pretty good. Several days of cardio, two to three of lifting, each week. Not bad. Can always be better, though.

The problem has been the food. Interestingly, I still track points! I’ve done it pretty much every day since I started weight watchers over 5 years ago. That’s just how I stay SOMEWHAT within the realm of reason, even if I’m not actively trying to lose weight. And the trend that I’ve noticed in the last few months is that I eat about 70-75 flex points each week, consistently. So I eat my 23 points a day, and then I eat my 35 extra flex points each week, plus and additional 35 – 40 MORE points! Holy cow. No, that’s not a TON of extra food in the and yes it’s amazing that I still write it all down, but it’s still easily 2000 extra calories a week. Holy shit that’s a lot. That’s like almost two days worth of extra food So there’s some perspective I just achieved.

I’m not sure how best to go about changing this, except to just get down and dirty with it. Make changes, cut corners, eat less, change what sorts of things I eat, go back to basics: look up nutrition info, don’t guess all the time, make healthy choices in terms of what food groups I’m choosing, avoid alcohol, avoid over-snacking. It’s easy stuff, but stuff that I’ve slowly strayed away from here and there. Those calories add up. I’ve enjoyed the last two years of relatively free eating. The best part is that no matter what kind of damage I might want to do, foodwise, in any given night, I’m literally incapable of eating the way I used to. My habits, my normal way of living, has fundamentally changed, which is very cool to learn and relearn all the time. I am constantly making great choices based on the calories or the health benefits, it’s completely kneejerk. There are some things I won’t even eat because I just don’t think it’s worth it, healthwise. So that’s very cool.

I guess the stuff I need to add back in are weighing myself more often (I try to do so once a week, but it’s not consistent) and writing on here to be accountable. Also, setting a goal for myself, and setting smaller exercise and food goals.

Mondays will be my “weigh-in” day, though I don’t think I’m going to be going to meetings anytime soon. We’ll see. Right now, my scale goal is 150. My smaller goals for this week are going to be manageable. 4 times exercise, and no more than 35 flex points. I think that sounds pretty reasonable. Okay, can’t believe I’m posting this on the internet. Oh god. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Now that I've got that new blog, I can use this old blog for anything I want!

I watched the new HST reel today - Chris showed it to a bunch of us this afternoon and it's AWESOME. But the one thing I realized is that I could stand to lose some weight.

If you came to this blog from my old weight loss blog, you will understand where I'm coming from. If you came to this blog as a friend outside the weight loss community, you might roll your eyes at me and think I'm silly to write this shit online.

But I was thinking the other day about how I came to be a big internet person, because when the internet first came out, I was decidedly un-internet-y, only ever online to check my email or MAYBE go to a website. I had a boyfriend at the time who was big into the internet and I could never understand it. I realized that when I joined weight watchers a few years later and started losing weight, I became more active online, reading people's blogs, posting on the WW forum, generally learning more and more about weight loss from the world wide web. So from pretty early on in my weight loss, the internet played a big part of my experience.

So I guess there's no other fitting place to return to when I feel like I need to shed a good 20 pounds. And that's about all it is. 20 pounds. That might sound like a lot to some people, but it's not, trust me. I've lost 115. What's 20. Peh.

But it's hard work, regardless. And I've got to get recommitted to it. I still workout all the time and I'm ALWAYS watching what I eat, but I'm not actively focused on LOSING weight right now. And I need to be. Because I look like the not-thin girl on this HST reel, which is not the "type" I want to be when HST hits it big. I guess I might not have a choice in that matter, since I'm never gonna be a size 2, but I can control how not-thin I am, can't I? :)

More on this soon, I suppose. Starting now, I'll workout and eat well for the next two days and then I'll weigh myself on Monday (I usually check in with the scale on Mondays) to see what we're dealing with. Maybe I'll even go to a weight watchers meeting?!?! Whhhhaaat?!?! :)