Current Weight: 340/Pounds Lost: -1.5

Well, it happened. I knew that the liklihood of either holding steady or losing every time I weighed in was unrealistic but there was a part of me that just thought that the pounds would just slide slide slide away. The rational part of me knows that I was less than stellar (although not too bad) on the diet front and I did work out three times this week (so could have gained some muscle) and that weight normally fluctuates 1-3 pounds so really a 1.5 weight gain shouldn't be a big deal. I'm actually not too upset about it, although I am a sad sad panda. I'm a little disappointed as I know I really could have done better but as I've been told "If you're always looking behind you, your past becomes your future". In otherwords, I'm not going to stress out about it and I look forward to getting back on track for my next weigh-in.

I also plan on writing a little more in the blog. I've noticed I've been a little lax lately and it really does help to write down what I'm thinking and feeling and what strikes me as funny/tragic needs to be shared! My brother's in town from Portland, OR and we're all headed to a bar tonight, going to try my best to only have a couple of drinks and then I'll be headed home. I'll try to post tomorrow about how it goes.

I've also taken up jewelry making. Okay well to be honest I've bought glass beads and all sorts of accessories and I've been READING about making jewelry. I am going to make one for my mom first and I'll post a picture when I get it done. I'm hoping one day to be good enough to maybe sell some of my work but that depends on how my work turns out. ^_^

Current Weight: 338.5, Pounds Lost: 2

Sorry it took so long to update! I needed a mental health day and decided to take Friday off of work. The downside? My scale is in the office for the Biggest Loser competition so I couldn't weigh in. I had to delay until today and woo hoo! Another two pounds! I had a total NSV (non scale victory) this weekend too so I just have to talk about it. I went to Target a couple of weeks ago and they were having this big clearance sale and for several years I've been too big to actually fit anything at Target (or Shopko) except for the dreaded stretch pants so I've not bothered to really look at the plus size clothing section. I decided since I was there I may as well try to find some goal clothing so I ended up finding a 22/24 size velvet fitted jacket and pair of 26w pants. When I tried the jeans on in the dressing room I could easily place a hand or more in between the sides of the zipper so I thought it would be a great goal to aspire to and since they were 50% off (only $15) I bought them and took them home. The velvet fitted jacket was only $3! It was way way too small but totally worth the price. Last weekend I tried the jeans on and I could barely get them peeled over my hips, even if the jeans were on the stretchy side. Yesterday I did my weekly try on and guess what... The jeans fit! Okay so they were skin tight but they fit they fit! *happy dance* I wore them all day even though they were a little bit uncomfortable just to prove I could. I started this journey in a 32w pants and now I'm in a stretchy 26w? Now I need to go back to the store for a stretchy 24w. ^_^ Man, I love shopping.

How I'm Redefining “Full”

Pre-lifestyle change I made and consumed a lot of food. I always made two sandwiches or burgers, always filled my plate to overflowing, insisted on having the super/biggie/upsized drink & fries, went back for seconds/thirds/fourths and generally ate until I was overly and sickeningly full. I didn’t gorge on huge amounts of food all of the time but there were times more often than not that I’d buy a package of Italian dry salami, a loaf of French bread, and a bottle of spray cheese and consume the entire thing in the course of a few hours. I knew I was full when my stomach was distended and my eyes had glazed over and the thought of one more bite would make me nauseous. It was the only way I recognized that I was satiated, that I didn’t need any more food. I’d completely lost touch with how my body worked.

I’m noticing more and more often these days that if I pay attention to what my body is trying to tell me I easily eat half to ¾’s of what I would normally consume. It’s like I’m finally waking up. When I don’t overfill my stomach there’s no run for dear life to the nearest restroom and no feelings of guilt and pain. That’s not to say that I still don’t eat too much or have those “uh oh & run” moments but they are starting to be more abnormal than the daily routine. I eat so well during the day that my nights had always been a free for all, consuming whatever came my way as soon as I could possibly get it to my lips and I still find it very hard not to add one more burger to the grill or pull out four pieces of bread or find the biggest bowl I own so I can load up on that night’s feast.

Why did/do I overeat like that? Why do I have the desire to still do it? It takes everything I have not to gorge on huge amounts of food. I enjoy food; I’m not going to lie. I love the taste. Really, that’s the biggest motivating factors for me, one of the main reasons I continue to eat and eat and eat. The taste of food is intoxicating. It flashes to the pleasure centers of my brain and makes me just want to keep consuming and consuming to prolong the sensation and for some reason it’s really hard to put the food down and be willing to throw it away.

It’s like getting a really good massage.. You’re 45 minutes in to it and you realize that all the knots and tension are gone and you feel really good and satisfied. You paid for an hour though, so do you stop the massage because you’ve gotten what you needed or do you keep going and get your full hour in and then feel guilty later because you didn’t need that extra 15 minutes? I think that’s the best way to explain what’s going on in my brain. I recognize when I’m full now, I’m just reluctant to give up what’s making me feel so good. Friday night I had to toss what was left of my chili into the sink and pour soap on top of it because I was still eating it when I was full!

I have a feeling this is going to be one of my biggest battles on my journey, breaking the cycle of bad eating behaviors for good and taking the time to listen to what my body really truly needs. Not wants. NEEDS.

Current Weight: 340.5, Pounds Lost: 6

O_O


That's all I could do this morning, stare at the scale in wide buggy eyed wonder.. 6 whole pounds?! Two days ago I cried into my cereal and today I'm 6 pounds down! Only one more pound and I'm completely out of the 40's.. Its crazy! I can't stop smiling. After a couple of really small weight loss weigh-ins I was afraid I was just maintaining or going to lose a pound a week (which isn't bad, I'd take that in a heartbeat). This time I'm doing the happy dance where everyone can see it! :)



.....


A friend of mine gave me the saying in the picture below. I've put it on my desk and on my fridge at home and I keep repeating it to myself throughout the day. I have a feeling it will be my new mantra! Don't exchange what you want most for what you want at the moment. Binging on food may be what I want at the time but it won't give me what I want most, to be healthy and slim and enjoying life to the fullest extent possible. I'm going to do my best to imprint that into my heart and mind and soul so that I never forget it!

Dieting is like being Bipolar.

I mean, think about it. The definition of bipolar is below (an excerpt taken from medicinenet.com):



Bipolar Disorder: A mood disorder sometimes called manic-depressive illness or manic-depression that characteristically involves cycles of depression and elation or mania. Sometimes the mood switches from high to low and back again are dramatic and rapid, but more often they are gradual and slow, and intervals of normal mood may occur between the high (manic) and low (depressive) phases of the condition. The symptoms of both the depressive and manic cycles may be severe and often lead to impaired functioning.
Both phases of the disease are deleterious. Mania affects thinking, judgment, and social behavior in ways that may cause serious problems and embarrassment. Depression can also affect thinking, judgment, and social behavior in ways that may cause grave problems.



I understand the mania of being on a diet. It affects my rational thinking. What sane person would binge and binge on food until their stomach hurt and then stand in front of the refrigerator looking for more? Who would order an extra large pizza with four drinks so the pizza dude didn’t think I was eating it alone and then eat three quarters of it? I limit my social situations when I know I won’t be able to control the behavior (ie. Going to a bar or out to a restaurant) and I’m so highly judgmental of every little fault when it comes to my lifestyle change. Some days I feel like I’m at the bottom of a slip and slide facing up a huge hill and I have no idea how I’m going to get to the top.

Last night I burst into tears after eating a huge bowl of cereal, the same bowl of cereal that I had been obsessing about eating for three solid hours. I lamented over the three peanut butter cookies I had after lunch and wailed about having to miss my workout. In short, I blew a major fuse. I honestly think the combination of stress and disappointment just kind of caught up with me last night and I bottomed out into a huge bowl of cranberry almond cereal.

This morning? I weighed in and lost three pounds from when I weighed in last.. Of course it isn’t official until tomorrow but I was totally ecstatic. I’m glad the scale is in a break room because I instantly broke into the happy danced and danced a few circles of joy around the room. I practically skipped back to my desk, my faith in my lifestyle choices renewed and my brain and heart eager to continue my hunt towards wellness.




It then occurred to me that this journey was really like being on a roller coaster.. Sometimes you’re climbing slowly and anticipating the ride ahead, sometimes you’re rushing full speed ahead clinging to your seat while laughing hysterically and sometimes you’re so scared you can’t even bear to move or breathe. I just have to keep in mind that although this ride never ends at some point on the track the hills and valleys will be less and the fear will subside and I’ll end up on an entirely different ride altogether, the one that involves living my life to it’s fullest potential.

I almost committed a felony

Okay it wasn't a felony. It wasn't even a misdemeanor, however I'm pretty sure it would have been classified as shoplifting. All I know is that this morning I was minding my own business in the cafeteria at work, adding some sliced almonds and raisins to my bowl of oatmeal, when I looked up and I saw... it. An old fashioned glazed donut sitting amongst the rather mundane bakery items spread out like a lady in a dirty magazine and giving me come hither eyes like I was the only woman alive. I instantly began to salivate and my gut told me that I had to have it and I had to have it NOW.

For one brief moment I thought, "I could just take that. No one would even know. They would think I'd already bought it and I could just take it to my desk and eat it and no one would be the wiser". I even looked to see if the lady working the register was looking my way to see if she'd try to stop me if I grabbed it and bolted.

Logically I knew I couldn't actually buy the donut (I had money in my hands if I needed it) because the cashier knows I'm a diabetic (so is she) and she knows I'm also in the Biggest Loser competition at work so I wasn't supposed to have those kind of foods. There was NO WAY I was going to actually purchase that donut and humiliate myself by showing my weakness so instead I pondered snatching it into my grubby fingers and hightailing to my desk so I could shove it in my mouth in two bites or less to get rid of the evidence.

I quickly backed away from the counter, clutched my bowl of oatmeal to my chest, and got the hell out of there..I'm much too pretty for prison.

Current weigh: 346.5/Weight Lost: 0

Okay so I didn't lose any weight this week and I've been slacking on the blog.. That's okay though, it's been a busy week! I flew to Seattle on Friday for work and had a photo shoot (nope, can't talk about why or anything, lol) and had to wear my workout clothes.. Sheesh, they were totally baggy on me but it's all I had and they only told me Thursday what I needed for Friday! The shirt was so baggy that they ended up having to clip it behind me... This first pic is before they clipped me, the second is after.. These were test shots to check lighting.. I think I need to do something with my hair! O_o




I honestly don't know if I'm losing any inches because I have difficulty measuring myself or if I'm just realizing that I've been wearing big clothes in order to hide myself. I guess time will tell! I honestly feel good and my back has improved greatly and I can stand for an hour plus at a time (at the photo shoot) and not worry that I won't be able to stand. That's a wonderful thing! I guess the Aerosmith line that says, "Life's a journey, not a destination" is totally right. I should enjoy each day as it comes and each success as it happens. So there wasn't any weight loss this week, that's okay! I cheated all weekend (although I did decline to make it worse than it already was by eating lots of bread and alcohol and etc.) but didn't gain any weight so I call that a win-win situation! Onwards to tomorrow!

One For All and All For One!

The comments from yesterday's post got me thinking, am I really too hard on myself? Is it okay to fail just a little bit and still be okay? I guess I really do have an all or nothing mentality, especially when it came to quitting smoking (six weeks today!). I knew that if I cheated just a little bit pretty soon I'd be back outside with the smokers puffin' away and I didn't want that to happen!

I've decided I'm going to relax a little bit and not be so critical when things go wrong, life happens and I just need to learn to deal with it and get over it. It would also help if I posted when I was feeling good, not just when I did something wrong. Today I'm in a great mood, doing well, worked out last night at water aerobics and had a blast and a little stiff today but not too bad..

It's true, I'm terrified I'll fail at this and not stick to it, that the fat is here for good and I'll never get married or find a life partner & have kids and live a good active life like I desperately want to. The strange part is that I'm usually the kind of girl who once I put my mind to it I get what I want.. I have all sorts of semi-expensive toys to prove it too! I quit smoking, got financially secure, moved to Alaska, moved BACK from Alaska, etc. I will do anything to get what I want and make myself happy so I should apply 100% of that to my weight loss as well. This will probably be the slowest payoff ever.. hee hee

I promise from this day forward to take a more positive attitude and tout my accomplishments and not my shortcomings as much! Thank you ladies, that was just the kick in the butt I needed. :) I'll try to post every day too, it really helps me organize my thoughts and work on my game plan at the same time.

I'm a dirty rotten cheater.

I cheat on my diet. There, I said it, I cheat okay, I'm a cheater! I'm sitting here at my desk staring at 1/2 a package of a Cacao Reserve bar from Hershey's (FYI soooo good!!) and realizing I really don't know when the transition happened, when I woke up one day and decided that it was okay to cheat on myself and my efforts to get healthy and slim down.

I mean really, I don't shoplift. I have never ever cheated on a test or homework. I won't even take extra cash if I accidentally receive more from a cashier than I'm supposed to but for some reason I seem to think that it's okay to constantly cheat on the rules I've set forward on my diet? Why is that? I'm just not sure.

Saturday's water aerobics was horrible. I don't think I can go to that class anymore. When I go during the week I feel challenged, I get sweaty and feel like I'm burning fat and genuinely enjoy myself and the instructors are fantastic. The young skinny thing on Saturdays though, Jesus. Who does she think she's teaching? We're all a bunch of old/fat/pregnant people and she's leaping out of the water like a fish while we do pike jumps to all four walls. Seriously, she just made me feel like I was fat and couldn't keep up. It was horrible.

To top it all off I didn't eat anything, at all, the entire day long because I was low on groceries and had company and couldn't feed all of us. I thought about getting pizza but after pizzafest last weekend I couldn't bring myself to do it. I finally went grocery shopping that night and ended up eating at 8:30pm and consuming two 20 oz sodas, two turkey burgers and an entire can of chili. My stomach hurt sooo bad after that. :( Oh and two fudgesicles. You heard me right, fudgesicles again. I had one more of those on Sunday and another 20 oz soda.

So what is it? I would never sabotage anyone else, I have to much respect and kindness to sabotage any one's diet or happiness. So why don't I respect my own rules? *sigh* I suppose I'm going to have to figure that out before I stop all of the self sabotage, huh.

Current Weight: 346.5/Pounds Lost: 1

Yay!! *dances a little booty shaking jig*



You have nooooo idea how excited I am just by that little dang 'ole pound. Whew! So why am I so excited about this? And why are my co-workers staring at me while I shake my ass in my cubicle? I was so sure, so absolutely positive, that I would step up onto that scale and every pound I've worked so hard for would be right back where it was before.. It's been such an up and down week, mostly with the lack of motivation and not eating well and not sleeping well.. So a pound is a pound and it's goin' down! :) Hey I calculated it, if I lose one pound a week until the end of the year I will lose 42 pounds! If I actually stick to plan and can lose 2 pounds a week I'll have lost 84 pounds and be midway into my twoderland instead of threedersville! O_O

The venting I had yesterday has helped a lot, I finally sat down with a piece of paper and outlined the issues I wanted to work on (ie. getting to bed by 10:30pm and eating without cheating, making sure I test my blood sugar, etc) and printed out a nice big list.. Now I just need somewhere to hang it! I plan on measuring myself tonight (I should have done it before I started working out dangit) so I can track my progress in FitDay as well since the downloaded program has that ability. I'm back to being excited, and that's a great thing.



I have water aerobics tonight (and did it last night) and hopefully tomorrow morning too. :) If my carpool agrees to drop me off at the Y every night instead of home I'll start going 4-5 days a week, this is exactly what I need! I find myself really craving the exercise and the time in the pool and the sweating, all of it. Yay!

I’m having issues with motivation.

When I first started this blog (and this diet) I was so excited, so optimistic. I was just sure that I’d be overflowing with energy and losing pound after pound while I moved and grooved my way to success and so I’m perplexed as to why, only a couple of weeks later, I’m so.. blah.. About everything.

I had a horrible food weekend and I’ve been making so-so choices all of this week and I’ve been seeing the scale move steadily upwards since Monday and it’s starting to freak me out! There’s this panic building inside of me that’s telling me that this is just a fluke, that I only dropped the weight by accident and in a couple of weeks it’ll be right back where it wants to be, stuck to my hips and ass. I did go to water aerobics Monday but didn’t do anything Tuesday. I was supposed to go to water aerobics last night but it was my mom’s birthday and she begged out so she could go out to eat and since she’s my ride I wasn’t able to get there. I did do a ½ hour stretching video but again ignored the hated treadmill. I did manage to guilt her in to going to the Y tonight and tomorrow so I can go to the 5:30 water aerobics class. I’ll be SO glad when I get my driver’s license. (Oh yeah, I don’t have it yet, that’s a whole other issue I won’t get in to now. LOL.. Deadline for that is May 1st though!)

I think part of the problem is that I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. I’ve been staying up late talking to friends on the phone (1-2am) and getting up at the last possible second every morning before leaving for work and I’m freaking exhausted! I have all these plans to do good thing but the energy factor is lacking greatly. So what do I do? I know logically I should get to bed early but my best friend (and the guy I talk to at night) works in the evening and after 10pm is the only time I can actually chat with him or her. Do I give that up?

You know, now that I look at that I can clearly see that it’s exactly what I need to do. I’m so worried about making sure that those relationships stays close that I’m sacrificing my own well being and potentially sabotaging myself in the process! No more! I’m putting my foot down and no more calls after 10pm. I want to be in bed between 10-10:30 and up at 6am, no excuses! Of course better said than done.. I can reach my alarm from my bed and can smack the snooze repeatedly.. I don’t really have anywhere else to put the alarm clock unless I move my entire side table across the room. Huh, once again I answered my own question.. hee hee.

I think I just needed to vent to clear my head a little bit, I’m going to go grab a piece of paper and write a few ideas down on how to improve my situation a little bit. I watched that Oprah episode about “The Secret” and I’m going to change to some positive thought! I AM losing weight, I AM getting healthy, I AM exercising, I AM doing this! Whew, being positive is tiring.. Zzzzzzzzzz...