Welp. I sorta wanna throw up right now, but otherwise, I'm okay. ;)

We had our holiday party at the PIT (the theater where Kev and I do improv and sketch comedy) last night. It was great fun, everyone got dressed up (I think I looked pretty fancy, if I do say so myself ;), and we had a really nice time. But I had two VERY VERY big glasses of wine. And I feel pretty nauseous today. It sucks. At the time it didn't feel like I was drinking that much, but being that I'm not a big drinker to begin with, and being that I didn't eat a lot at the party, it seems to have absorbed itself into my system. I also, for whatever weirdo reason, shared a cigarette with my friend Clayton. No clue why, but it was probably the white wine's decision. I only had a good 5-6 drags. But I have a cough from it today! Grr! Just goes to show that the body does not prefer to be toyed with. I will not be doing that again any time soon. GROSS.

I really don't want to be at work right now. Like, really really not.

The party, as I said, was a lot of fun. I love seeing all my good friends dressed up and enjoying themselves. There wasn't a huge array of food, which was probably best. I had a subway sandwich, which was very yummy, a handful of chips, the icing off a small cupcake, and a few bites of mac and cheese. I was pretty satisfied when I was done eating and decided to simply STOP on the food front after I'd finished that plate. That's not something I'm historically good at doing at parties where there's food available AND alcohol in my system. But I was bound and determined to leave this party feeling good about how I'd conducted myself. And not overeating is the key to that for me.

I knew I wanted to get a little tipsy; it's a party with my favorite people, after all. So I allowed myself to drink, but not more than felt comfortable. And somehow, once the "awards ceremony"* official part of the evening was over, once everyone was again milling about by the food and drink, or dancing or chatting, I decided to just focus on hanging out with my friends and enjoying their conversation. And I really did. I didn't miss picking at the food one bit. So that was a big success. (*I won MVP of my improv team! Aw, fun. - For the record I'm sort of against voting an most valuable player for an improv team since the very spirit of an improv team is that no one is more "valuable" than anyone else. But then I won. That felt nice. I'm still ethically against the award. Ahem. ;)

I took a cab home - probably left around 11:30 or something - knowing that I didn't want to push it. I'm glad I did that because I was able to get in a relatively full night's sleep. I'd be hurting even more today if I was more tired than I am right now.

Because I had a rough morning yesterday, having left at home both the breakfast AND lunch I'd prepared for myself to bring to work that day (booo!!!), I came home last night to find that I had a healthy wrap with turkey and light cheese already put together in the fridge, so I ate that once I was home. The wine had started to really do it's thing by that point and I needed something more in my system. I watched an episode of House, since that's the only thing I ever watch on tv ever these days, and then I went to sleep. I don't even really remember getting into bed. I was OUT before my head hit the pillow.

The scale has been going down down down lately and I couldn't be happier. I went to the gym yesterday on my lunch break to offset any potential damage I might do at the party. That was a good move. And I'll go again today (even though it will be MUCH less appealing to be there - oof) so that I can offset any potential damage I might do TONIGHT at my OFFICE holiday party! Whhat! Two holiday parties in two days. That might be considered mild torture in some places.

I love parties, don't get me wrong. But arrays of food and spirits in the form of festive holiday-ness two days in a row is definitely challenging. I don't even feel like drinking tonight. Maybe I'll have a glass of champaigne or something small but beyond that, I think I'm just going to stick to club soda. I do NOT need the alcohol in my system. It makes me sleep shittier, I don't need the calories, and it certainly won't make my stomach feel better.

There will definitely be food there tonight. And I won't have had dinner. I had a nice healthy delicious egg sandwich breakfast (to make up for the fact that I -waaaaaaah- left the one I painstakingly prepared yesterday morning sitting on the effin kitchen counter -waaaah- can you tell I was very upset about that whole mess?) and I just ordered some lunch - grilled chicken over brown rice with peppers, tomatoes, and low sodium tomato sauce. Cannot WAIT for that. I think it will really hit the spot.

So my plan tonight at the party is to, first of all, have exercised on my lunch break, and then to eat no more nor less than I would if I was sitting down to a normal supper. I think it will all be in the form of passed finger foods, which can be tough because it's hard to eyeball how much you've eaten in that case. But I'll try to keep a reasonable count of what I've had, snack on veggies in between, and sip water the whole time. Should be easy peazy. I also like to leave these work things earlier rather than later. So perhaps my reward for a party successfully navigated will be a hot cocoa or some other small dessert when I get home tonight.

NEXT on the list of mini-challenges will be TOMORROW. Gah! This one, I did to myself. I'm having a few friends over tomorrow night to sip festive Christmas drinks, enjoy our tree, and play games. Another historically difficult scenario for me where overeating is involved: the party I throw myself. I knew when I planned this small fete (just a couple people) that it would be the day after two parties in a row. I tossed around the idea of doing it on Sunday instead of Friday, giving me a couple days to recover in between events. But honestly? I don't want to run my life like that. I'd rather have the get together on a Friday night, I'm sure my friends would rather it be on a Friday night, and if the only reason I want to do it on another day is to save myself the hassle, calorie-wise...well that's silly. And it's not how I want to be operating now, six years into my life as a weight loss success story.

SO. It will just mean yet another day of counter balancing things with a good workout on my lunch break (or perhaps something at home in the morning before work? some pilates and yoga?). And then I will also make good breakfast and lunch choices tomorrow. I think I'll prepare stuff at home to bring with me into the office for both of those meals, giving me even more control over what I'm consuming. And then I'll make sure to have some baby carrots and some nuts before the party starts, keep water close at hand as I sip on the Christmas cocktails, and be sure that the snacks I get are healthy and don't make me want to stand over them and inhale. (I think that might be the key, I just realized, to not overeating at my own parties - don't buy snacks that I love to eat! Dur!) We'll order pizza if people get hungry and if that's the case, I'll just have a slice. Perhaps preplanning my game plan in this way might be just as nutty as moving the day of the party to avoid overeating. But whatever. I do what I gotta, I guess, right?

Phew! Navigation! Planning! Exercise!

Luckily, beyond doing an HST Christmas show on Saturday night (fun!), shopping for children's gifts for the charity I'm donating to this year, and dropping said gifts off at my office on Saturday, I don't have anything to do this weekend. Awesome. No plans on Sunday (besides possibly more shopping?), which is superb. So I should have plenty of time on both days to get in nice, long, relaxing workouts. I think I'll also spend some time trying to use up some of the food we have in the house before we go out of town for the holidays. Perhaps I'll make a lasagna and some kind of chicken sausage and whole wheat pasta dish? Should be good.

As I said, the scale is being very good to me lately. I'm so proud of myself for recommitting to losing weight this past January. In case you don't know the tale, I lost 115 between 2002-2004, then I gained 21 pounds back. I've since lost 11 of those pounds (I said 11.6 the other day! My math was wrong! >blush!<) and I'm so thrilled that I have. I'm seeing numbers on the scale right now that I haven't seen in 2 to 3 years. It's great.

I recommitted to my goal on January 1, 2007 with these words:

After losing almost 115 pounds five years ago, I’ve gained about 20 pounds back in last two years. In these last two years, 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 or weigh herself every day because she used to be fat. I needed to go there with it. To return to the land of those people who don’t weigh themselves every day or obsess about how much they ate or what size their pants are… And I’m glad I did it. Practicing living my life as a thinner person who doesn’t have a huge weight problem has given me invaluable perspective on how to be a relatively healthy eater without the scale as my compass.

But it has certainly been a balancing act, these two years without utilizing all those measurements and barometers that I had set so firmly in place when I lost the bulk of my weight. It was almost like taking away my pacifier when I stopped obsessing over the details. And frankly I’m sort of happy to have put back on a little bit of the weight over two years. Because I didn’t put a lot of it back on, only a little bit! Which is great! I’m still a normal weight. That’s a wonderful thing. I wasn’t normal for a long time and I wasn’t entirely sure if I had the capacity to be normal. Also, I have been forced to become comfortable with THIS body, with being imperfect, with being a few pounds heavier than I want to be. That is 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 even if one’s body isn’t up to Hollywood standards. And I think I’ve finally learned that. Being imperfect and not working toward perfection for these two years has helped me to accept that it's okay to be imperfect for the rest of my life. I do want to be healthy and active and feel good about myself, though.

So 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, who doesn’t feel like she’s at the top of her weight range, but somewhere in the middle to low end. A me who 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 two years. I've been doing it in some form or another since 2002. I think I can recommit to doing it with more focus for a little while.

And that's what I did! My life has changed in small but noticeable ways in these last 11 months, since recommitting to this. Aside from slowly losing weight, there are also these things:

1.)I am madly in love with exercise right now. And I have been for a few months. I've worked out regularly for the last 6 years and my love affairs with it have come and gone. But my current love affair is at an all-time high. When I first recommitted back in January I had a hard time getting to the gym even 3 times a week. Now I am doing active stuff every chance I get. I work out 6 days a week most weeks, walk as much as I can, do extra situps or pushups whenever I get the chance. There’s no quick fixes to this stuff. So I’m either gonna stay active or I’m not. And for whatever reason, my body doesn’t respond to just 3 days a week, 30 minutes per session anymore. And I’m fine with that. Exercise has become a kind of religion for me lately. It’s meditative, spiritual, relaxing, helps to de-stress me, and makes me feel great. I think it ALSO makes my skin look incredible. But that’s just a theory. ;)

It took a solid 6 months before any feelings close to those about exercise started kicking in, but they ultimately did. And I'm so glad I was able to get there with it.

And here’s the cool thing: I honestly think if I'd been dropping weight a lot faster for one reason or another, I wouldn't have fallen so I love with my workout regime. I think I would have coasted by on the fact that the number on the scale was dropping and I wouldn’t have had a reason to go deeper into my relationship with my body, which is what ultimately led me to finding a more spiritual side of my life through my exercise. Dropping the weight a bit more slowly led me to think, "Well, if I'm not working out to lose weight, than why am I working out?” I had to come up with other reasons and other motivations than the number on the scale. I decided I was working out because it makes me feel so good, and because it's good for my body, and most importantly, it's good to form these habits so I can keep them forever. I'd much rather have THAT kind of relationship to exercise than one where I do it as a means to an end. It's all about the process, baby.

2.) I care now more than ever about the kinds of foods I put into my body. I'm into organic living, cooking all-natural, whole, healthy things, using healthy oils and getting in my fruits, veggies, whole grains and good fats. And I know that is because, similar to what I said about exercise, I was losing slowly enough that I had to come up with ANOTHER reason or motivation, besides weight loss, to encourage myself to want to eat really well all the time. It made me feel so good to know exactly what I was eating, to avoid unnecessary preservatives or chemicals, and I was getting more satisfaction out of the foods I was eating. I was also enjoying learning about the local markets in the city and about how to be more ethical with my eating. I'll never be a vegetarian, but I care a lot more now about where my food comes from. I make choices about what to eat based on THAT stuff more than I do on the caloric content of something, almost every time. I can't remember the last time I ate a Lean Cuisine type meal or some empty, low-calorie from-a-box snack. I was always hungry when I was done eating that stuff. And I just started to grow away from wanting it, but not because of how it impacted the scale, but because I knew I didn’t want those foods in my system. I knew there was something else out there. I’m not sure I would have really “gotten” that to the extent that I do now if I this last year had been a different journey.

3.) Last and best of all, I know it's off for good. Even if I only ever maintain this exact weight, I know I've lost it and I know that I know how to keep it off. The lifestyle I lead today, right now, with regard to my health is one I could maintain forever. I love the relationship I’ve found with exercise, I love the relationship I’ve found with food, and I love that I been able to navigate an entire year of life – a year of birthdays, celebrations, parties, date nights with Kevin, barbecues, summer drinks, Thanksgiving, Halloween, all the other holidays we use as an excuse to overeat and overdrink, sadness, happiness, stress, relaxation, moving into a new apartment, snacks at work, dinners and brunches with the “in-laws,” hangouts with friends – all while slowly losing this weight. I haven’t encountered one of those activities wherein I felt deprived or alone or like I was different. I have honestly felt like it's all just good practice. I have enjoyed all those events, indulged beyond measure at some of them, kept more of a tight rope on myself at others of them, but mostly I have found balance. And to be completely honest, as much as I know what I weigh on a given day, this year has not been ABOUT losing the weight. I had to make it about something else because I just couldn't focus on losing weight just for the sake of it anymore. I had to make it about having a richer experience with my health. The 11 pounds and counting has been a wonderful bi-product.

My late teens and early twenties were not an easy time in my life, as many of you already know. So being 28 years old and honestly being able to say for the first time in my young life that I believe I’m finding a balance with this stuff is so nice. I wasn’t sure I’d ever end up here. I feel fantastic about it.

ANYWAY. I didn’t intend for this post to turn into this. But I’m feeling good about where things are with that stuff lately…so it happened. Apologies for the self –congratulations. ;)

Not much else to report. That’s pretty much the full story. Looking forward to seeing my family soon. Just 9 more work days! YEAAAAAAAAAAH. (I know this because we have a countdown calendar at work. I walk by the number 50 times a day.) Can’t wait.