W39, Day 4: Just thought I'd share

I'm stepping out the door this morning in a size 16 pant and a large top and darned if I don't look cute while doing it.  This is a change from the size 18-20 pant and 1x top I've customarily worn for years. Gotta get out there and strut my stuff....just not too much since I work in an elementary school.  It'll be a mental strut.

W39, Day 3: Change of environment = trigger tempations

I have no idea where this week went.  So often that seems the way of things, the time just flies by in a whirl of mostly busy nothings and a few busy somethings.  Next week I'll be heading to fifth grade camp with my bunch of kids and somehow it's hard to believe that it's almost time to go.  Camp activities aside, I'm worried about the food aspect.

Traditionally, I gain 3-5 pounds during camp week.  Part of this is because that a lot of the food served there is "kid friendly" stuff like chicken nuggets, pasta, pizza, pancakes, etc.  Obviously these are foods that I generally avoid or keep to a minimum, so four days worth of them is a bit much.  The second problem is portion control.  This sounds like it would be easy to deal with--just don't take much of anything, right?  But when I see that assortment of 'forbidden' foods all there with everyone eating them, well, things sort of fall apart.

An example of this was our staff luncheon yesterday.  I knew it was coming and starting mentally preparing myself to pick my lunch with moderation and care.  "Moderation and care, moderation and care, moderation and care...." went my mental mantra.  And then I saw the mountains of goodies and tasties.  Moderation and care flew out the window.  Nearly a couple of thousand calories later, I wanted to feel remorse but it got lost somewhere too.  Deep down, I feel anger at myself when I lose control so completely because it reminds me that I'm not fixed, or cured, or really in control over my mind.  Instead I just put my head down and take it day by day, calorie by calorie, compromise by compromise.

Anyway, getting back to the camp thing, it's just mentally overwhelming to be around so many trigger foods.  I'm trying to prepare myself now so that I can get through next week successfully---here's hoping for mental strength!

W39, Day 1: Weigh Day

Weigh day today and the scale showed at 197.6, which is -1.8 from last week and -0.4 from where I was a few weeks ago, so I'm making the loss in small increments.  I'm also getting back into the workout routine after having a shaky exercise week last week.  I'm starting to feel my strength returning after last week's dratted cold and I pushed myself at the gym both yesterday and today (and I can really feel it in the muscles by my ribs every time I breathe in too deeply).

I'm trying out a new workout plan of different times for particular days.  Instead of going to the gym twice on Mondays and Fridays for both weight training and spinning, I'm going to sleep in the extra hour those days for some added rest and to try to hold off some of the exhaustion and do the spinning class in the evening (though I missed it yesterday because when I got there at my normal time fifteen minutes prior to class, it was already full).  Then on Tuesday through Thursday I'll hit the gym at my normal early time before work for a mix of cardio and weight training.  Saturday and Sunday are optional depending on how energetic I'm feeling, what our plans are, and what I want to eat (hey, gotta exercise to burn some of those calories!).

We're going to give it a try these next couple weeks and see how the new schedule goes.  In the meantime, I'm off for an early bedtime since I'm meeting with the trainer in the morning for measurements and hopefully some cool new exercises--bring it on!

W38, Day 3: Falling

Whew, somehow this has felt like a crazy week!  Part of this is because I've been so tired that I haven't gotten done everything that needs to be done, putting me further behind and adding to my sense of being overwhelmed. Maybe it's also due in part to not really working out much this week too.  Normally in a week I work out every weekday, and on Mondays and Fridays twice.  This week I just have had no strength for any of that.  I went to the gym on Monday and Tuesday, but yesterday when I dragged myself out of bed to go to the gym, I think my sick body would have been better served sleeping in because I barely managed 20 minutes on the elliptical when I stopped I felt like I was going to be sick and I couldn't breathe because my lungs were full of gunk (exercise generally involves breathing).  Normally I feel re-energized after a workout, but that took everything out of me and sapped me of any energy I had.  Today I just stayed in bed for the extra hour.

You may be wondering to yourself, "Why doesn't this fool girl just stay in bed if she's sick?" And if you're not thinking it, I have been off and on to myself this week.  I'm feeling almost normal tonight--less like an asthmatic long-time smoker--but maybe I'd have healed quicker if I'd just given into it and spend my time resting?  I guess it was fear that pushed me onward....fear that I'm going to be fat forever, fear that I was letting my mind take me down "the slippery slope" to laziness and giving in to everything.  I've lost and gained so many times that I know how easily it is to fall off for what you think is a day and find the slump lasted for months or a year...  If I'm exercising, I know that I'm not letting my mind and body lose control. I'm doing what needs to be done.  If I'm just laying on the couch, what if I'm just letting myself fall?

W38, Day 1: Weigh Day

Weigh day today and I'm going to keep this short because I'm still not feeling on the up and up...obviously the chocolate the other day didn't do it's job--maybe I should demand a calorie refund!  :)  Anyway, the scale was at 199.4 today, which is still up from two weeks ago, but at least it's back under the 200 mark so I'm satisfied.

Now I'd just like to shed this cold because everyone hates a stuff head and it's interfering with my workouts.  I had to smile today when I noticed a note from a student telling me that she was enjoying my class and that I am a "force of energy".  I'm certainly not feeling it these last couple days!  Maybe I need some more chocolate--perhaps the dosing wasn't quite right.  Oddly, I do notice that I've been much more hungry these last few days as if it's more than the mental comforting behavior, but that my body truly is more hungry when I'm ill.  Interesting...and now I'm off to crawl into bed in preparation of another day tomorrow, hopefully with a renewed sense of strength and energy to keep inspiring younglings.

W37, Day 6: Comforts

I'd like to start with pointing out that I did make it to the gym today and had a good workout, though I was pretty wiped out for the rest of the day.  There's something pretty lame about being ill over the weekend, because I feel like I had so much to do and no energy to do anything.  Another day off would be great because I'm still so tired, but oh well, that's how it goes.

I notice that being ill makes me want to comfort myself with the usual things:  chicken soup, cozy blankets, lots of liquids...and food.  Yesterday I woke up with the thought, "I'm sick, I want food."  I stayed on track with my calories, but all day I just wanted to eat in between the bouts of sleeping and lazing about.  Somehow my brain just makes the connection that food = feel better, even if it really doesn't.  I had some chocolate tonight though, just in case it is the feel better cure.

Some of this was tonight's prescription for good health.  Hope it kicks into effect before tomorrow so I'm revitalized and ready for work.

W37, Day 5: Gym avoidance

Well, I need to admit that I never made it to the gym yesterday or today.  I didn't go on Thursday because that is my normal rest day, but I was so wiped out on Friday that I just decided that it wasn't going to happen and I'd make it up today.  All well and good, except that I woke up today with a stuffy head, runny nose, and a sense of fatigue larger than my waist.  I dragged myself out of bed and vaguely watched my Saturday morning house shows, hoping I'd pull it together and go to the gym after my shows were over.  My shows ended and I crawled back in bed and slept for another couple hours.  The nap and subsequent shower still didn't get my body rolling.  I decided I'd do something fun to get me going and then get myself to the gym--I'd go to the mall to cash in an excellent coupon.

So, ventured out to the mall, but I still felt so much drag.  Just walking from one end of the mall to the next was enough to totally poop me out.  What the heck?  I went to two department stores, looked around, and called it done.  Now, please note that normally I'm an endurance shopper, but not today!  On the bright side though, Sears carries the Land's End brand and I have been waiting since spring to fit into their size 18 jeans.  This would be significant because it crosses the line from plus size to regular sizing.  Every time I've tried them, I haven't been able to get them to fit around my waist.  I figured today I'd be able to button them up since even with last week's gain, I've lost about ten pounds since I'd last tried.  I put them on and.....they didn't fit.  They were too big.  How cool is that?  I tried on the 16 and while it was a bit snug, it fit.  I almost bought the pair because they looked awesome, but they were fifty bucks and I shouldn't spend that much on such a non-necessity.  But it was still awesomely awesome.

On the not so awesome side, I never made it to the gym and I just feel like crawling in bed and staying there in a warm, dark cave for a few days, but I'm sure I'll be more perky tomorrow and I'll drag my butt to the gym tomorrow, full strength or not.  In the meantime, I'm just going to go with the tired for today and let it be.

W37, Day 3: Sugar Bliss

I've been so tired this week.  Today was my sleep-in day, but that extra hour did nothing to take the bags out from under my eyes.  Good thing tomorrow is picture day at work so I can showcase my lovely brown, puffy eyes.  I've been feeling sort of run down too.  I don't want to be lazy, but when I woke up this morning, the thought of going to the gym early tomorrow morning made me feel incredibly sorry for myself.  This is a strange reaction because most times I feel good about going to the gym...tired, yes, but willing.  I think it's just the tiredness in me talking because I know that I need to go and work my body if I am going to reach my goals.  But, damn, I feel old when I'm falling asleep on the couch at 7:30 p.m.  Obviously, I'm a major party animal!

On another random note, I asked myfitnesspal.com to start tracking my daily grams of sugar for me and it's not pretty.  There's no way that I'm going to fit in the stringent 34 grams of sugar limit that the website first assigned me.  I'm not ready to publicly admit just how much sugar is going into me on a daily basis, but I will say that I was surprised at the biggest sources of my sugar:  my apple at lunch, yogurt at breakfast, the frozen pre-made lunch, tomatoes, and (not too surprisingly) my chocolate chip Fiber One bar.  Sugar is apparently everywhere.  Maybe that's why I'm so sweet...and fat.  Still, I love my sugar and I'm not ready to give it all up just yet, but maybe I could stand to cut down a little....maybe.

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Here's another plug for www.myfitnesspal.com!  It's fast and easy to use and I plan out all my calories in the morning so that I have a good idea of where I'm headed all day and how I can best use my calories to work in foods I enjoy and avoid being hungry.  You can also track your exercise and get reports on your nutritional information.  Anyway, it's great.  If you're checking it out, you can add me as a friend--my username is eilonwychade.  See you around!  :)

W37, Day 1: Weigh Day

Weigh day today....*sigh*  It was definitely a gain, which is a bummer, but expected.  Even so, I hesitate to write this because it wears on my heart as well as my thighs.  Okay, here goes, 200.8.  Yuck.  That's a gain of pretty much everything I lost in the last week.  It's always hard when you feel like you've worked hard and it hasn't paid off, but that's how it goes.  Ah well, I'll keep working it with week.  Onward and upward.

W36, Day 7: Athletic

Went to spinning tonight, for which my sore bum can attest.  I like the calorie burning potential and the feeling that I have accomplished something, though I'm totally wiped out afterwards.  The exhaustion is definitely worth the virtuous feeling of having hit the gym twice in a day.  Wooo!  Wooooo.....zzZZzzzz...

Anyway, I like the instructor a lot because she is super enthusiastic (and er, crazy) about cycling and she constantly shouts out for you to push, push, push yourself to do more.  One thing she said today made me mentally laugh though, because she pointed at the main part of the gym and shouted, "Those people are here to work out (indicating everyone else in the gym), you are here to be an athlete!!"  Oh yeah, that's me.  I think we can just look at me and see that I'm not inclined towards athleticism.  Just this morning I was staring at my calves, fascinated by the weird and separate jiggling up and down my legs.  I swear my legs are more muscular than ever, but I've never noticed so much jiggling and wiggling before....weird.

On another random note, weigh day's not going to be good.  With the exception of last week's weigh day, my weight for the whole week was a bit up, even though I continued to carefully note my calories and exercise daily.  Maybe that's just how it goes some weeks.  I did go over my calories this weekend (even though overall I should be at a calorie deficit for the week), so that will impact the weigh in.  Also, things haven't been 'flowing' well lately, if you get my drift, and anyway, I'm just going to take the number tomorrow as it comes and then move on...and on and on...every step, tread, and cycle makes me stronger.

W36, Day 5: Noms

Okay, I'm just going to state for the record that I've gone way over my calories for today, but it's been a very tasty food day.  We've been visiting family in the Bay Area and have sampled several yummies today.

The first item on the list starting out today was one of my all time favorite, a pork bun.

Mmmm.  Steamed or baked, these are soooo good and it's been at least a year since I've had one.  Today's bun was straight out of the oven.  Hot and delicious.  To top it off, we had a sesame ball for dessert and it was definitely fried goodness.

I know, I know, you may be thinking, "What?  What are you doing?  What about your goals?"  Yes, I know that it's important to be focused and determined and I am most of the time, but sometimes I also have to balance that with eating for enjoyment---and I definitely enjoyed this.  This kind of eating is not sustainable all the time, but I think every once in a while it's gotta (okay grammarians, replace "it's gotta" with "it has to") be okay to simply enjoy food.  At least I hope so because I continued this trend at dinner with my in-laws.  

We had shrimp lettuce wraps, pork sticky rice, spicy broccoli, beef chow fun, and sweet red bean soup.  Yum.

I've really missed good Chinese food since we moved out of Davis so it was nice today to sample favorites.  Tomorrow I'll be back to paying attention to each bite I take, but it was a nice change for today.

W36, Day 1: First Goal Met

Week 36.  Nine months into this trip.  Somehow it seems like both a long and short amount of time.  My final goal is to get to 150 pounds, which is 79 fewer than my starting weight of 229.  My plan for the year was that I would lose one pound a week, which would (in a perfect world) total about 50 pounds.  

So, on to the good news--I've hit one of my first big goals for myself:  cross the 200 pounds mark.  It means a lot to me to see the first digit of my weight to switch from a 2 to a 1.  It's hard to explain why it's such a big deal, but just take my word for it, it's important to me.  This afternoon I weighed in at 198.0, for a loss of 3.4 pounds this week.  Woo hoo!  By itself, this would be a great loss, but the fact that it puts me solidly under the 200 mark, well, double woo hoo!  This is week 36 and I've lost 31.4 pounds.   Pretty cool.

To celebrate this month's progress, I decided to try something crazy:  I bought cookies.  I love Pecan Sandies.  I love them so much that I literally have not purchased a pack in ten years because I know that I could not trust myself around them and they represent pure food evil.  Yet I know that healthy and "normal" people can buy and eat cookies in acceptable proportions.  I must have looked like a crazy person because I stood there in the grocery store with a package in hand trying to decide if I could handle having cookies in the house.  Looking at the package, a serving size is two cookies.  The last couple days I have had a serving of cookies each day.  Obviously it's not great to eat cookies every day, but this is about pushing myself to deal with the temptation and exercise control.  I'm not going to lie, I don't know if I would buy cookies again because I know they are there in the cupboard and I really want them, but I want to control myself more.  I am better than bingeing.  You're going down, Sandies! 

W35, Day 6: Confusion

I find myself very confused.  Things seem to be flowing much better this week and if things continue for the next couple days, I should be pretty happy come weigh day, so I don't want anyone to think that I am complaining.  But I am legitimately confused.

Here's why:
I am functioning under the impression that calories in = calories out.  What I mean by that is I've heard many times from general dieters, Weight Watchers, and websites that the number of calories that go into my body determine a gain or loss.  It's as simple as that, right?  If you eat more calories, you gain weight.  If you eat fewer calories, you lose weight.  There have been many instances in the last few years when I have wondered if that is true.

For example, several times I've indulged in rich foods and stayed under my daily food points and not lost weight or actually gained.  How could this be if I ate fewer calories than I was supposed to?  Oh how I railed at the diet gods that week.

Further, last week I ate under my calories every day except Saturday.  I am allotted 1,750 daily calories and  also get an exercise allowance on the days when I worked out, taking me up to around 2,000 total, but I tried to eat around 1,400-1,500 calories those days.  In theory, I should have lost two pounds that week because I was already eating about 500 calories less than I burned plus the extra 500 calories from exercise.  Instead I lost nothing.  How could that be?  I swear I counted my calories as faithfully as possible.

This week, in rebellion, I ate almost every single one of my calories, including my exercise ones and even had a way-over-calorie-crazy-food day.  The day after my binge lunch on Wednesday, I expected a gain on the scale and was shocked there was nothing.  The scale has been sliding down in small increments all week.  How can this be??  I eat so much more, (so much!) and yet I've begun to lose weight again.  Potentially, I'm looking at a relatively large loss this week after eating like crazy.  In truth, while I love eating more food, I also feel uncomfortable.  As if I am letting myself slide slowly out of control.  What if I'm tiptoeing my way into fueling my addiction?

I know that in the month that I've dropped Weight Watchers and started eating more, I've lost about ten pounds after four months of plateau.  That should be evidence enough, but I just can't seem to accept the idea of eating more.  I guess deep down my biggest fear is that I'm going to make myself more fat.  What if I wake up one day and I'm so much worse than I am now? Obviously you can't gain weight that quickly, but I'm just afraid of losing the control I've worked so hard to build these last seven months.

W35, Day 5: Hungry!

I awoke this morning to a growl.  Rawrr!  I looked around, a lost dinosaur?  An angry cat?  Nope, my stomach.  I felt the inward pinching that says, "Excuse me brain, I'm really, really hungry and I think you ought to take care of this so I'm waking you up at 5:30 a.m."  What the heck?

This is annoying on two levels:
1)  Saturday is my day to sleep in and catch up after waking up way too early every morning to hit the gym.
2)  I ate a perfectly normal dinner last night, consisting of two pork chops, a handful of baked sweet potato fries, a bowl of cherry tomatoes, a stick of pepper jack cheese, and a Skinny Cow mint "ice-cream" (more like ice-milk) cone.  I also had a perfectly normal lunch, breakfast, and snack and consumed more than 2,000 calories during the day.  Obviously there was no starving myself going on.

But I have been ravenously hungry the last few days.  The unhappy stomach dino is back.  Rawr!  Rawr!  Rawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!  Yesterday I ate my granola bar that I had packed for my after work snack as soon as I parked my car and walked in the building in the morning.  I have been cutting back on carbs and trying to eat more protein, but that is been my focus for the last couple months and besides, it's supposed to cut down on hunger, right?

I don't know what's going on, but I wish that dino would just hush up already.

W35, Day 3: Bosu ball fun

Whew, I'm so glad that tomorrow is Friday.  I feel like I am dragging every night, as if my body is ready to shut down at 6 p.m.  I greatly enjoyed the sleep in morning today, but I sure wish it was every morning.  I guess I never really appreciated sleeping till 6 a.m. until we started getting up at 5 a.m.  Hopefully our bodies will adjust soon so I won't feel so draggy by dinnertime.

On the plus side (whoa, I just typed 'plus size', apparently it's a Freudian slip or my brain is really tired) I'd like to mention that my husband and I have been going to the gym faithfully for exactly three months.  Woo hoo!  This is also my fourth week of being back at work and so far we've been able to keep it up.

Yesterday I met with my trainer and I am really excited about (and sore from) the new exercises she gave me.  My favorite is standing on top of the upside down bosu ball while doing squats and weight curl ups.  I've seen other people doing these and it always looks like so much fun.  It reminds me of something that should be marketed to kids.  Even better, the trainer said that she was surprised because I have such good balance and coordination.  *Laughs*  Oh yeah!  I'll take any exercise praise--I may not be fit, but I'm sure trying my very best.  Bring it on!

Just imagine me looking like this guy, but with weights in my hand and not dressed in tights.  :)