Gah!

So I was all set to wait until after the holidays and start with a New Year's resolution to get back on the ball, but the scale this morning scared me.

189.4

After I swore to myself I would never hit 190 again. Up until now, I've been around 183-185, but I think getting married and eating out a lot and indulging every little food whim I have has pushed the scale up a lot more quickly than before.

So let's be brutally honest. It's been 6 months since I've been religious with my food journaling on Sparkpeople. It's also been 6 months since I've worked out regularly. I have had a few weeks here and there where I made it to the pool 3 or 4 times, but I haven't been consistent at all.

I live right across the street from the Y and can work out every morning if I just drag my butt out of bed. No more excuses.

Sidelined

Well, I WAS going to start back to the gym this morning, but it wasn't to be. Last night when we were moving a bookshelf, I kicked it with my left big toe and the nail pulled off.

Again.

This is the 4th time this has happened. I'm starting to think this toenail just does not want to be part of my body. So today my poor toe is wrapped in a couple of bandaids and throbbing a bit. I couldn't swim because the bandaids would come off and I've tried to swim with the toenail flapping around, and let me just tell you, it hurts like a mother.

I could elliptical you say. Except for the fact that shoes and pressure on the toe are pretty painful right now. In fact, I tried to put on heels this morning to go to work and after gasping out in pain a few times, Jason told me to just wear comfy shoes. He said, "Look, if you had broken your foot, you would just wear sneakers or boots or whatever, right?" True.

So I'm wearing my Payless bike shoes, with the sassy zig zag strap. The toe still hurts a little, but it's not too bad. I've actually gotten 4 compliments on the shoes today, with no one commenting that they're not very business-y.

On the upside, we still have a LOT of cleaning and unpacking to do and I will be lugging around big boxes of books tonight as I unload them onto my bookshelves. It may be a lame work out, but I'm going to let it count for now.

Oh hi.

So, I got married and stuff. It was super fun.

Today I was talking with a girl at work, both of us bemoaning our lack of weight loss momentum, and it hit me that all of those times I said that I would get back to it after the wedding, well, that's now. The two of us have agreed to be each other's motivators and I even directed her toward SparkPeople.

I was really worried yesterday after I commuted for 3 1/2 hours (and then came home and cried like a hysterical baby because, oh my gosh, all the traffic, and the stopping and the going, and I'm totally going to kill someone) that I would never be able to find the time to work out. However, I arranged with my 3-day a week job today to come in at 10 instead of 9, which means I miss rush hour. Providence, RI to Newton, MA this morning: 50 minutes. That is so, SO much better than the hour and 45 minutes it took yesterday. Let's hear it for flexible bosses!

So that means I can skip across the street to the Y on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and then throw in a workout on Saturday for good measure. The hard part, I feel, is going to be the food this time around. For one, I have totally given in to my Diet Coke with Lime/Diet Dr. Pepper addiction and have been consuming a lot of caffeine over the past few months. That's going to be a rough habit to break. I want to go back to only letting myself have a soda once a week.

For two, I have been caving into all of the temptations around me. Every Friday one of my jobs has bagels and pastries and such and I was so, SO good at resisting them. Not to mention the cakes and candies and all the other stuff people bring in. I didn't even give them a second thought, just walked on by. Yeah, I don't know what happened, but that amazing resolve I used to have has completely disappeared. I had an asiago cheese bagel this morning with sundried tomato cream cheese (reduced fat). While it was sinfully yummy, I realize that sort of behavior has to stop.

Monday it starts again. I dusted off my SparkPeople profile and redid my stats. Monday morning I'm hitting the gym. Monday I will be eating healthy and drinking massive amounts of water (while most likely staving off a caffeine headache). I have only gained about 4 pounds back, but it was freaking hard to lose those 4 pounds and I refuse to be that girl again who says, yeah, I lost 22 pounds last year. But I gained it all back.

Wedding Coming Up

5 weeks until the wedding and I haven't gotten my wedding dress altered yet because I have been in such denial about the fact that I wasn't going to lose 10 more pounds. Darn it. Stupid crazy busy summer.

Yesterday I bought my shoes. Today I bought my, ahem, underthings. I wanted something that gave a nice line under the dress so I invested in some Spanx, as seen and lauded on Oprah. Those things rock. And they actually stay up right under my bust like I always wish control top pantyhose would do. So now there is no excuse to not get my dress fitting over and done with, besides hating to say, "Yes, it needs to be let out." *Sob*

Also, since I really have NO idea what size I am with the weight going down then up then back down again, I had a real bra fitting. 36D. Whaaaa? Who knew I was a D? Seriously, though, I tried on the 36D and it fit amazingly and held the girls up high and proud. I thought I was a D when I was my heaviest, but now I think that I must have been a DD because I have definitely shrunk with the weight loss. As I have also learned from Oprah, 99.9%*of women wear the wrong size bra. Guess I was one of them.

I swam 4 times this week and this morning I did a routine (versus just swimming straight laps) that got the endorphins pumping and made me feel strong. Also this week I discovered what I need to eat AFTER a workout: Protein. Usually when I swim, I feel a little brain-foggy for about half of the day. I figured it must be a food thing but many experiments haven't shown me what exactly. This week, as the idea of cold cuts had me salivating after my workout, I tried just straight protein. About 120 calories of chicken and I am on top of the world. So I have finally worked the kinks out of the morning workout food: Pre-workout - 1 serving of juice or fruit and 2 slices of light wheat bread with a 1/2 T of butter and/or honey; Post-workout - protein.

Tomorrow we are going to The Big E, aka the New England State Fair. I plan to try a deep fried Snickers (which I won't eat all on my own. I just want to try it) and a Big E Cream Puff and that's all I want. I think 4 swims this week allow for a little state fair food. Next week I plan to swim 4 or 5 times. Rock on.


*Not really, but some high number.

Nooooooooooo!

You know what's motivating? Stepping on a scale after 2 weeks of not working out and, oh, a month or so of not really caring all that much about what I put in my mouth. Gah!

The weather has been so lovely lately that I planned all of these errands on Saturday that entail walking all over downtown Boston. Only I learned this morning that Saturday will be muggy and mid-90's. So I figure I should sweat off at LEAST a couple of pounds. If I don't die from heat prostration.

Meh

I don't know what my problem is. I have a few good months and then it all goes to hell in a handbasket.* After some good times here at the weight loss blog, I find myself puttering around, not eating THAT badly, but not eating that well either, and surely not exercising regularly. I keep saying, "The momentum's back! Rrraar!" and I have a good couple of days, but then the momentum fades.

I should have lost 10 more pounds by now and at least several more inches. Instead, I'm going to have to have my wedding dress let out instead of taken in when I finally make it to the tailor. It's all this wedding planning and working 2 part-time jobs (about 50 hours a week) with no job security and traveling to and from Providence a LOT to hang out with Jason.

Worst of all, I'm losing my edge of moral superiority over my less active and "oh, these shorts are getting tight" fiance. And we can't have that.

I don't really know how to get my spark back, and I am so in awe of women like Pasta Queen who have lost insane amounts of weight and are still plugging along, sticking to their plan. I keep making excuses about how this week has been SO CRAZY, but I have a feeling that that's how they're going to be from now on - at least until the wedding. Probably afterwards too. And I am NOT gaining back 22 pounds just in time to walk down the aisle!

Tomorrow is shot. I'll be in Providence tonight and I don't have my suit or anything with me. But Thursday. Thursday I am in the pool.


* In one of my apartments in Chicago we had a navy blue inflatable chair that got dubbed "the handbasket" because one of us was sitting in it while being snarky, followed up by, "I'm going to Hell" and then another one of us chimed in, "In a handbasket" and then she said "No, I'm in the blow up chair," but the chair was forever after dubbed the handbasket. OK, you probably had to be there, but we got a lot of mileage out of the handbasket and who happened to be sitting in the handbasket and what you could be doing in the handbasket to warrant your destination.

I Guess I'm Not the Fat Girl Anymore

I had an encounter yesterday that seriously called into question my self perception, as well as reminded me of the type of comments I hope I never hear myself making.

I was offsite at a client’s office and had to be let in by the secretary. The elevator door opened to let us on and out walked 3 heavyset women with large containers of food they had just gotten from the cafeteria one floor below.

After we got in and the doors shut behind us, the secretary turned to me and said, “I know this is awful of me to say, but every morning when I see those big women with their big food containers all I can think is, ‘You can’t walk up one flight of stairs?’”

And, ok, the women were large and they did have a lot of food, but as someone who has bounced around the 200 mark for awhile I know that simply eating less and walking up a flight of stairs occasionally probably aren’t the only issues there.

I just kind of murmured, “Uh-huh” without elaborating. This was the client after all. It’s not like I could really whip out my In Defense of the Overweight Treatise.

It was weird to suddenly feel like I was part of the in crowd. The thin crowd. The ones who talk about the fat people. The fat people were the “other”, there to be judged.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered if people around me were thinking that I really didn’t need to be ordering that brownie or that scoop of full fat, full sugar ice cream. Maybe they were.

I still feel like the fat girl. I feel like I look pretty good now, but I know I still have 20 pounds to lose. More if I wanted to look like someone on TV, which I don’t.

Just an odd moment all around. Uncomfortable because of the comment being made to me, assuming I would agree. Strange to realize that I suppose I don’t come across as the fat girl anymore. At least not to this secretary.

Plateau?

I think I may have hit the dreaded plateau. June was kind of a loss because of the craziness of the month and my sporadic exercising. However, other than a McDonald's indiscretion the other day*, I have been pretty precise with my eating for the last few weeks. I've been doing the calorie cycling, eating my high calories on the heaviest exercise days. I've been swimming and when I can't swim I do weights and pilates at home, which, with the weather the way it's been, is probably worth more than I give myself credit for based on the amount of sweat I'm generating in my non-air conditioned apartment on the 3rd floor.

Yet I weigh myself every morning and the scale keeps bobbing between a 2-3 pound spread. I whip out the tape measure and don't really see any difference. And, people, I need to fit into my wedding dress!

With my schedule, I can't really squeeze in more workout time right now. So I guess my only option is to try to mix it up. This morning I swam my 80 laps, but I threw in 10 laps of backstroke and I can really feel it. Different muscles, different breathing. I think I need to fight my way out of my workout rut, which it's easy to fall into when it's 6:45 AM and I just don't want to have to think about an interesting and challenging routine. Apparently, though, just swimming my usual isn't cutting it anymore.

On the mornings when I don't swim, I think I may try to go for a fast walk. Since I drive to work now I never get to walk through my neighborhood anymore on the way to the train station so it will be nice to check out everyone's gardens and see what's new. Then I can do some weights in the evenings.

I just need to do something. This whole plateau thing is very annoying!


* Which was totally not worth it. The puny, deep fried, heavily battered Chicken Selects were not all they had promised to be. Yesterday I had a Southwest Salad and realized I should have just ordered that the other night for dinner. Yum! And no guilt!

Boyfriend*

80 laps yesterday.

However, today I had to get something signed by a client before work. A client who works near where I live, not near where I work (about a half hour from where I live). Since the gym is near my work, I had to forego the pool this morning. I did get up early and do pilates, weights and abs, so at least I did something.

Last weekend, Jason had to go to work on Saturday afternoon and left me to putter around his place. I was watching TV, but then got antsy just sitting on the couch so I decided to do an ab workout while I was waiting. Then I went ahead and did some leg exercises too while I was at it.

He got home and said, "Have you been watching TV this whole time?" I said, "Yes, but I've been productive too. I did abs and leg exercises." He looked crushed and said, "Why didn't you wait and do the exercises with me?"

Well, A) you never really seemed that interested in exercising before, and B) (as a corollary of A) I'm not a mind reader.

However, I was excited to learn that he actually wants me to show him the exercises I do and to do them with me. Also, he's started walking the mile to work every day AND playing tennis occasionally with some co-workers. I think I'm being a positive influence. Now if I could just get him to eat better...


* I don't like the word "fiance." It sounds too snooty or something.

Dress

Now I can tell you one of the big things that was so distracting during the month of June.

I have additional motivation to keep losing weight, you know, besides my health and all that. My dress. It's just a tad too small, but I knew when I bought it that I was losing weight so it would all work out. Right? OK, there is enough fabric in the seams that a seamstress could let out an inch or two, but I don't really want to go that route. I would rather have her taking the dress in.

So this month I focus on fitting into the dress. I don't have to get the tailoring done quite yet so my goal is to fit into the dress on my own by then.

Monday: 80 laps
Wednesday: 80 laps, ab exercises, weights

And I plan on swimming tomorrow and Friday too.

On A Roll

I asked my roommate the other night why suddenly after 4 months of good eating and working out I was having such a hard time being consistent? She said it's because this whole weight loss thing isn't the only thing I have to think about anymore. Very true.

When I was at my mindless job, it was easy to be very precise with what I was doing to take care of my body. Since I could work from home, I would often leave early to make the pool's lap swimming schedule and then work a couple of more hours that night, usually with The Office or something in the background. Now I use my brain and I actually have to be at work ALL DAY LONG. The nerve! Plus, I've had a couple of outside projects come up that are further occupying my mind and my time.

So while I should have lost 4-5 more pounds and who knows how many more inches last month, instead I lost nothing. Well, no, that's a lie. My weight stayed the same, but I lost half an inch on my waist and half an inch on my hips. Which, you know, is good and all, but not that much progress for a whole month.

I think I need to make an effort to blog more here just so that I'm more mindful of what I am doing. I feel my momentum kicking up again as I'm settling into a routine. Last week, we wound up walking about 4 miles on the 4th, then I did pilates and weights on Thursday and swam Friday and Saturday. Granted, Saturday was only 60 laps because the pool was too crowded and at one point there were 4 unevenly-matched people trying to swim circuit in my lane and I don't even want to talk about how annoying that was, but I still did it.

80 laps this morning, and I plan to do pilates and weights tomorrow morning. I'm going to do some ab exercises tonight too. So I'm getting this week off to a good start.

It's still really hard to swim in the mornings. I got to sleep around midnight last night and finally dragged my butt out of bed at 6 AM (my alarm went off the first time at 5:30). Out the door by 6:20. Packing my bags the night before helps. It also helps to know that getting to the gym by 6:50 means I miss rush hour traffic.

Momentum Can Be Fleeting

Ever since I started my new job I have had the hardest time getting into some sort of exercise routine. I have about an hour and a half of commuting every day in the car and that kind of saps my will to live. I generally like to drive, but not in rush hour, in bumper to bumper traffic, feeling like I'm killing the clutch of my new car and getting aggravated at the stupid STUPID people that I share the road with. I also sometimes maybe have a touch of the road rage.

So by the time I get home I really just want to make my dinner and plop in front of the TV, or maybe take a stab at tidying up my room. Or sometimes I drive down to Providence after work to hang out with my boyfriend. Also, now I have real work where I use my brain all day and I'm still acclimating to that because seriously, it's wearing me out. I went to law school and work and had an internship and headed the Health Law Society and helped out with mock trial and moot court and all those competitions, you would think I could handle using my brain 5 days a week. Apparently not.

So basically the yoga and the strength training hasn't been happening so much.

Then there's the swimming. I didn't go last Monday because I don't remember why. I'm sure it was a good reason, or at least I justified it as such.

Tuesday I swam. Yay! 104 laps because I'm a rock star and didn't feel like stopping at 100. Then I got a half migraine because I'm still trying to figure out how much to eat for this whole morning swimming thing and apparently whatever I ate wasn't enough.

Tuesday night I was in Providence and in order to go swimming on Wednesday, I would have had to have left Jason's at 5:30 AM. Um, no.

Thursday - Thursday was the dumbest. I had my gym bag and my work bag all packed, and my breakfast and lunch all set to grab from the fridge. All I needed was to pull on my swimsuit and eat a little something before driving to the pool. However, I forgot to reset my alarm and woke up an hour late. Hmph!

Friday, well, let's just say a little friend came to visit on Thursday and I just didn't swim on Friday. I know I don't want people swimming in the pool with me when that's going on with them, so I'm showing the same courtesy. Do unto others and such.

And here we are at Saturday and I'm sitting on Jason's couch trying to get some work done for one of my jobs. To my credit, the state of his apartment and my pent up energy has so far resulted in him now having a clean bathroom and two loads and counting of clean laundry. So at least I'm doing that rather than rooting around in his candy stash.

My point is, this has become the excuse blog as of late. I'm rediscovering how easy it is to lose momentum. I think about how good my momentum was before when this whole weight loss thing was pretty much all I really had to think about. My schedule was set and I was in control. Now my schedule is haphazard and my brain is being pulled 50 different ways and some days I just want to sleep for another hour instead of drag myself to the pool.

But we're about to start a new week. A new week, all sparkling fresh with newness. I will inaugurate the new week with a Monday morning swim. And I will continue throughout the week because swimming makes me happy and strong, and not swimming makes me feel like a lump and feels me with this dread of gaining back this weight that I have worked so hard to lose. I feel a bit like Scarlett O'Hara, but she knew what was up when she said, "Tomorrow is
another day." Losing weight is my own personal Rhett Butler.

182.2

My roommate commented to me last night how much it really looks like I'm losing weight. She could tell before, but it's just getting really noticeable.

On that note, the scale this morning read 182.2. It's not my official weigh-in, but is notable because it means I've lost exactly 20 pounds since January 31. In the weirdest way, I'm freaked out. 185 was the magic number before. It was the lowest I got during the summer of 2005 the last time I lost weight. For the past couple of weeks, my weight has been consistently under 185. I'm greedy for it to keep going down, but at the same time my immediate, gut reaction this morning was to say out loud, "Well, that's a little scary."

Why? Why is it scary? Because I'm becoming not the fat girl anymore? Maybe soon I won't even be the chubby girl anymore? I don't really have an answer and I'm kind of surprised about the trepidation I feel. Not that I'm going to stop my efforts. I want to get down to 160. But I'm a little freaked out.

Toenail

80 laps this morning. And let me tell you, it was kind of rough. Not only have I not really done laps regularly for 3 weeks, but I am not used to working out in the morning anymore. My body was kind of wondering why I wasn't still at home in bed. This is going to take some getting used to.

However, other than being ravenously hungry*, I feel really great right now with the endorphins. I love endorphins.

The Y is much better in the morning and I had my own lane for about half of my workout. I forgot my hairbrushes today and discovered that my hair looks pretty much the same when I blow dry it while running my fingers through it. Good to know.

I am convinced that the fates have been conspiring against me to prevent me from working out. From the Y not being lap swimmer friendly in the evenings during the week when I could only go in the evenings, to my boyfriend being in a nasty car accident, to the most recent toenail incident.

***Warning: the following is kind of icky. I'm just sayin'.***

About 6 years ago, I ripped off my big toenail on my left foot. Honestly, it really didn't hurt that bad when it happened, it was just unattractive. The nail has never grown back right and I've suffered through many summers of wearing sandals while trying to hide my toe. Last summer, I discovered that I could get a fake nail and I was so, so happy because I could have cute painted toenails for the summer and no one ever knew one was a fake.

Well, the first guy who did it just filled in the nail bed on top of the little nail nubbin that was there. It looked great and natural. The woman who did it this year (about a month ago, actually) put an acrylic tip on top of the nubbin and then filled in the rest. I didn't like it as much this year because the nail stood up really high from the nail bed and occasionally I stubbed it. However, it seemed liveable.

On Monday night I planned to do about a half hour of yoga and pilates, followed by a half hour of strength training. On my way to doing a teastand, my standing-too-high-off-the-nail-bed toenail caught on the yoga mat and pulled back. I collapsed and grabbed my foot. Blood was already pooling around the edges of the nail. Sure enough, the fake acrylic AND my little nubbin of a nail had pulled completely away from the nail bed and are now hanging on by a thread.

So now I'm kind of stumped as to what to do. I cut the acrylic down as much as I could, but I can't soak my toe in acetone to get it off because, um, ow. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if it heals and then go from there. I'm worried that after this I won't even have a nubbin to attach a fake nail to. My grand idea is to see if a plastic surgeon could put in some sort of permanent implant. But that's a little frivolous for my current financial situation.

***End of grossness***

As of today, I am back in the pool in the mornings, assuming I can keep waking up at Freaking Insane AM.


* I ate some pineapple before I left home, which is my normal pre-workout snack, but I may need to add something else.

Life

I hate when life dictates that not only shall there be no working out this week, but that I will also be eating out a lot and not really controlling my food. Oh sure, I could have gotten a salad at Longhorn, but when you're at a STEAKHOUSE, it seems kind of rude to order salad. Like, maybe the super steak chef would spit in my dressing-on-the-side or something. And I don't really feel like eating salads at 9 AM at IHOP.

Let me explain. This past week has been crazy. My boyfriend was in a nasty car accident on Wednesday night. He is fine, but his car is totaled. When we finally got out of the hospital at 8:30 the next morning, we headed to the nearest breakfast place for food because we were both starving. I got an omelet and pancakes. And it was good. I only ate half the omelet, so that counts for something.

Then later that day we were out and about, stopping by the tow lot to get his belongings out of his smashed up car and checking out car dealerships for his next big purchase. We were still pretty tired, so we went to Outback for dinner. I got a burger. And it was good. As a disclaimer, I substituted salad for the fries (the Wasabi salad. If you go to Outback, try it. It's really yummy). I also only ate half my hamburger bun.

Friday was fine, since I was at work and just ate my normal healthy food. But because of the chaos the swims that were supposed to happen Thursday and Friday mornings obviously didn't.

Saturday morning I ate Kashi oatmeal. Good choice, yes?

Then we went out and I bought a new car. Actually, that was the plan all along for Saturday since I'm driving to work every day now and need a more reliable car. Jason used the opportunity to check out the 2007's as well. After the purchase, which, you know, takes HOURS, we were starving and went to the Longhorn Steakhouse down the street from the dealership. I got another burger. This time I only ate half the burger and I got a baked potato with the toppings on the side instead of fries.

Saturday night we went to a Mexican place and I got fajitas, but I didn't eat all the tortillas, I didn't eat all the cheese and I didn't eat all the sour cream. I also brought home half of my grilled meat and onions.

So really, I think I did not too bad for not actually ordering the salad option at every meal. According to my scale I haven't gained anything yet and I'm hoping that starting this week off right with a swim in the morning will stave off any gain. I'm looking forward to being back in my healthy groove. Sometimes life just really gets in the way.

Lesson Learned

Last night I discovered that going to the Y when there are only 2 lanes open for lap swimming is a bad idea. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks early evening is a good time to go swimming. They have morning lap swim with all 6 lanes available and I'm sure that's when the hard core swimmers go. And hat's when I'll be going from now on.

I'm going to be b***hy swimmer girl for a moment and complain, so just move along if you'd rather not read a tirade.

First of all, midway through my workout, this dad and his kids decided to cross the lap swim lanes to get across the pool. So fine. You wait until the swimmers have passed and then you go. But no. Two of the boys went just as I was getting to the end, and then the third little boy vaulted off the lane line into the middle of the lane, right in front of me. If he had jumped a couple of seconds later, he would have landed on top of me. I know kids are rambunctious, but Dad was standing RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, just watching him go over the lane line. I popped up and the dad said, "Oh, sorry about that." I was the only one in the lane at that point. Would it have been awful to, you know, hang onto your kid for a few seconds and wait for me to go by?

Then about 10 minutes later, I was in the middle of a 200 when I realized that there were a man and a woman standing at the end of the lane, blocking me from doing a flipturn. Okaaay....

I popped my head up and the woman said, "We can swim a circuit." For those of you who don't know, circuit swimming is basically what you do during swim team practice when there are a bunch of people in one lane. You space the swimmers and swim up the right side of the lane and back down the left. Now that works just fine when you're all about the same skill level and going about the same speed, but it is a disaster when levels are mismatched. As shown last night.

The woman said, "You go first because you're stronger." At this point I was still standing in the middle of the lane about 10 feet from the end because they were still blocking the entire end. I asked, "Well, can I have some space to push off?" I think that was when they realized they were blocking the entire lane because they looked surprised and moved out of the way.

So I started swimming. The woman came after me, swimming a leisurely freestyle. Then came the man, swimming a veeeery slow breaststroke. So basically I did a 50 and caught up to the man, but as I was going to pass him, the woman came swimming by on the other side, blocking me. My only choice was to stop in the middle of the lap and wait.

At that point I realized that continuing to swim was pointless, and I got out. Only 64 laps.

Usually when I swim, everyone just waits if there are already two people in a lane because they recognize that circuit swimming doesn't really work, but I guess they both wanted to swim really badly RIGHT then. Annoying.

Let's hope swimming in the mornings is less chaotic.

Back in the Saddle...Again

Well this has just been crazy time for me and not a good time for exercising. Basically in the span of 8 days I interviewed, second interviewed, and then got a new job. Then the next day my pool closed for renovations.

Work started on Wednesday. I spent most of Saturday shopping for business casual clothes. For the past year I've been working at jobs where I could wear jeans every day if I wanted and I only needed to dress up occasionally. Add to that the 18 pounds I've lost since January and basically nothing besides my jeans fit me right anymore. I found a bunch of skirts and discovered that at least in the skirts I'm a real, genuine size 12. Yay!

I have entirely given up on ever finding slacks that don't look completely freakish on me. My bum and thighs are just too big and my waist is too small. It doesn't make me feel particularly fat, though, since I remember being thin and having that problem too. I have 2 pairs of Lane Bryant slacks in 16 that are falling off of me. I popped in there on Saturday to see if I could fit into 14 dress slacks, but LB 14's are officially too big for me. Well, not their jeans. I still wear their jeans. But their slacks are too big, which is good, but also bad since they're the only store that takes the .7 hip to waist ratio into account. I've heard Banana Republic is good, but they're pricey and I wasn't willing to pay a lot for what I hope are simply interim clothes.

The bad thing about the job is it's in the suburbs, which means no more mile walk to and from the T, and no chance to walk home from work. Now I'm driving everywhere and feeling kind of guilty as I add myself to the long line of commuters and wish I had a Prius. I was planning on using this week after the pool closed to search for a gym and to walk the 3.2 miles home from work every day for exercise. Instead, I've been driving every day and trying to find the least crowded routes to and from work. I've been bone tired when I've gotten home and haven't done any sort of exercise at all this week. I've tried to eat on the low end of my calorie range, but I admit to indulging in treats, particularly at Jason's choir potluck on Wednesday night where there was decadent chocolate cake and pavlova.

Despite the crazy week, I haven't actually gained any weight, but I haven't really lost any weight or inches either. The lack of exercise has also taken a toll on my mental well-being. I miss my endorphins.

Today I went to go check out a gym on my lunch hour. As the sales rep was showing me around I started having a sneaking suspicion that there was no way I could afford this gym. From the pretty, dark wood lockers, to the AMAZING pool with the windowed ceiling, I wasn't really shocked when she told me the monthly fee was $105. And that was a special discounted rate available for people who join this month.

I went back to work discouraged since I had just been planning on joining and maybe even going for a swim tomorrow morning. I looked online for what else was in the area and discovered the local YMCA, also just down the street from work. Ah, the trusty Y. It's not fancy, but it's got a pool and locker rooms with changing rooms, which is more than I can say for the fancy clubs I belonged to briefly in downtown DC and Boston. I'm very happy that so many women are so very comfortable just walking around with it all hanging out, but I do not happen to be one of those women and I am tired of changing in the handicapped stall of the bathroom. The Y is $52.50 a month, and I can cancel any time I want with no penalty, also unlike those fancy clubs.

Starting Monday, I'm back in the pool. Since I don't have the option of walking anywhere anymore, I'm going to have to step up the amount of yoga, pilates and weights that I do at home in the evening just to maintain the exercise level I was at. No more being lazy right when I get home.

Visual Aids

I'm starting to think that I am a spatial and visual thinker. I can usually size up an area and figure out what will fit there or see how to make something fit. Like when I was helping my scientist boyfriend and his scientist brother move a futon and while they scratched their heads looking from the futon to the car and back to the futon, I figured out how to angle it so it would fit perfectly in the back of the car.

Fat Blogger just used an image that really clicked with me because it is such a striking image. He has lost 10 pounds, which equals 40 sticks of butter. Using those terms I've lost 64 sticks of butter. That's a lot of butter. I almost wish I could buy it and pile it on my kitchen counter as a reminder of what I have accomplished.

I know slow and steady wins the race and all that, but sometimes I wish I could drop the remaining 25 pounds in the next couple of weeks and be done with it already. I'll still eat healthy and exercise, but I just want the weight gone. I want a less hefty body to move around every day. I want to wear the cute clothes that I'm barely fitting into now. Today is just a frustrated day with this whole process.

Disturbing Stats

I just read that the average American consumer eats 3 burgers and 4 orders of fries each week. A typical American child gets 1/4 of his/her vegetables in the form of French fries or potato chips.

Yikes.

Back away from the drive thru, America.


100 laps last night. This is the last week my pool is open, which is sad and also a hassle. Also, since I'm not really sure what's on the horizon for me as far as home and work locations, I'm reticent to join a gym that doesn't have a good cancellation policy. I know, good luck finding that, Kelly. Next week I will be checking out gyms.

Jason told me last night that he would really like to see me at 110 laps. He pointed out that if I added 2 laps a day, I would be up to 160 in a month.

Um, k. My response to him was, "You know what I would like to see from you?"

Pause. "Any sort of activity at all?"

"Exactly."

Yeah, buddy, you start working out AT ALL and then we'll talk about strategies and work out plans. I'm trying to encourage him to be more healthy, but that comment about getting up to 110 laps just made me laugh.

Pizza

I ate some pizza last night and my body is not happy. I helped a friend move and she bought us pizza afterwards to say thanks. I had planned on leaving before then, but I wanted to stay and hang out for a little bit longer since she left town this morning. And I was hungry. Yesterday was one of those days when I could not stay full, no matter what, so my growling stomach was not helping.

Last night my stomach was hurting and it's still not feeling great. Plus, I'm so lethargic. Of course, I stayed up late, but with the amount of sleep I had I shouldn't be this run down. Lots of carbs, sodium and fat. Yum!

I need to remember how the crappy food makes me feel, especially now that I'm used to the healthier stuff.

Weigh-In

Just as I expected, the holy grail of 185 or under is not to be mine this week. 185.6 this morning, despite keeping my sodium under 1,000 mg yesterday. However, another 2.125" is gone. Another .6 inches and my waist will be in the 20's. When I was last in good shape my waist was 27" and my hips were 40", so once I get to those measurements again I will know that no matter what the mirror tells me on my fat days, I look pretty darn good.

I feel like I've been kind of lazy this week because I've only been swimming twice. However, I did an hour of yoga and weights last night and I know I'm going swimming for sure on Saturday. And I'm helping a friend move tonight. According to SparkPeople you can burn 112 calories in 10 minutes by lugging boxes around. I'm debating whether or not to actually count it in my exercise tally for the day since I have a feeling a few super-efficient guys are going to show up and minimize my personal physical involvement in the whole thing. We'll see how it goes.

But back to the lazy. For some reason I have been extra super tired this week and I'm not really sure why. I've been getting the same amount of sleep as usual, but instead of waking up at my normal time I keep hitting snooze over and over until I'm stumbling into work at 9:30, still feeling like I could have slept for a couple more hours. I feel a little more with it today and managed to get into work early to make up some hours, but I still feel tired.

Simpletons

I was pretty appalled to learn that Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were going to be counselors at a fat camp in the next season of The Simple Life. There are just so many things wrong with that. One of the first thing that comes to my mind is poking fun at the poor overweight kids who are there. Paris and Nicole and the camera crews that follow them around don't seem to be the most sensitive folks.

My fears were confirmed with the ad for the show I just saw on E. The head of the camp said that every counselor had to participate in giving the kids a colonic. So the scene is of Paris looking on, horrified, as Nicole, looking horrified herself, faces the rear end of a very large teenage boy and then you see his face as he groans and there's some sort of cartoon sound effect to go along with it.

Ha ha ha, let's laugh at the fat kid getting the colonic. Grrrr!

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

While I managed to stay within my calorie range yesterday, I'm not exactly proud of what I ate. It was yummy, though. There was a lot of cheese. It was a very cheese-filled day. Mozzarella cheese and Irish cheese and cheesecake.

But, you know, one day in a stretch of being very, very good isn't so bad. Plus, I weighed myself this morning and my weight is still the same so the cheese hasn't caught up with me yet. I'm starting to think that I'm moving so much with my swimming and my weights and my sometimes yoga and pilates, that a bad day here and there isn't going to kill me. And it wasn't SO bad. Like I said, I stayed within my range.

In other news, I swam 80 laps on Saturday instead of the 100 that I was planning to swim. About 50 laps in this gaggle of teenagers descended on the pool. There must have been 30 of them. They all got into the diving pool and cheered each person on who went off the board by chanting his or her name incessantly. And this one girl let out a BLOOD-CURDLING scream every single time someone dove in. Or came near her. Or breathed.

This is another reason indoor pools suck. The echoing and reverberation was intense. So I swam a little more in my set, did a cool down 200 and huffily left. The lifeguard gave me a desperately sad look as I walked out, silently pleading with me to take her with me.

This is another tick in the "pro" list for joining a gym after the pool closes on the 24th. No teenagers.

And yes, I realize I'm a crotchety old lady.

Uno Mas

Down 2 pounds and 1" this week. In case you're keeping score, that's 16.2 pounds and 21.75" since January 31.

So I don't want to jinx anything, but 1 more pound and we're back in Fantasyland for me. At the end of summer 2005 I reached my lowest weight since, oh I don't know, junior year of college (1998-ish). I weighed myself at a friend's house and was 185. Then I started giving into my Chicken McNugget cravings and sinking back into a bit of depression and working out once a month or so.

I know the odds are that I will lose a few more inches and no pounds next week since that seems to be my pattern. One week I lose a bunch of inches and minimal pounds, the next week my pounds are down and there isn't much action on the inches front. But how awesome would it be to step on the scale next week and see "185"? Pretty awesome, in my world.

I've been pretty easy-going about the pounds coming off since I know I'm gaining muscle and this is a slow process and all that sensible stuff, but I would really like for just that one pound to disappear this week. That doesn't seem like too much to ask, right? Here's hoping.

Tired

Tonight I only did 90 laps. Why, you ask? Because my muscles are tired. I decided on what routine to do before I got to the pool, but somewhere around lap 38 I realized there was no way I was going to get to 100. It's not that my limbs are actually sore, but rather that they're just tired. Very, very tired. Every single stroke was an effort tonight.

My body is going to have a nice two day break since I won't be able to swim tomorrow or Friday night (I am doing a bit of pilates tomorrow morning though). I fully expect a solid 100 laps on Saturday afternoon. Hear that, body?

Tonight's routine:
150 swim
200 kick - free up, fly back
8 50's on 1:00

100 swim, R :20
200 swim, R :30
300 swim, R :40
300 swim, R :30
200 swim, R :20
100 swim (in 1:50 tonight. Again, tired.)

150 kick
150 swim

And then I dragged myself out of the pool and collapsed in a puddle of red TYR suit in the locker room.

Sometimes You CAN Fight Genetics

In my family, we joke a lot about spilling something on ourselves whenever we eat. Someone always does.

I would like to note that I ate an entire container of tomato soup* for lunch while wearing a white shirt and I did not spill any soup on me!

I'm just going to ignore the fact that this occurence may be due, in part, to the loss of my rockin' chest through this whole weight loss endeavor.

Sigh.


*Au Bon Pain Tomato Basil Bisque. Sooo good AND reduced sodium.

I Miss Swimming Outside

In my quest for a new pool to start going to after my current pool shuts down for renovations, I found Swimmers Guide, a site with information on pools around the world. Pretty neat. Unfortunately, it confirmed what I already basically knew. There are very few pools in my area. Even fewer that will let the public use them without jumping through crazy hoops. And even fewer for someone who actually works during the day.

There are times when I truly miss living in the Southwest, where pools were abundant and so was my tan. When I moved to Chicago after graduating from college I was so distressed to discover that up north they only have indoor pools. In dank, chlorine-smelling rooms. I've kind of gotten used to the indoor pools, but that doesn't mean I like them.

At my college, swimming was a big deal, so even the student rec center had an amazing pool. It was huge - I think about 12 lanes. The best part was the filter system, which I know sounds weird, but it really was cool. All around the perimeter of the pool was a 8 inch wide grate. The pool water came up to the deck and sloshed over the edge and through the grate, where it was filtered. Now here's the cool part: it kind of sounded like ocean waves. So I would swim my laps in the warm Arizona sun, and then drip dry on a deck chair (there were about a hundred of those) with my eyes closed, imagining that I was actually at the beach.

100 laps again tonight:
150 swim
150 kick - free up, fly back

2 200's - R :30 in between, R :45 after #2
3 150's - #1 kick R: 20; #2 swim R: 20; #3 kick R: 45
5 100's on the 2:00, R :45
8 50's on the 1:00, R :45
10 25's - odds easy, evens sprint. R :10 in between each

200 swim

Plus I did some pilates and weights this morning. I'm feeling tough.

100!

100 laps tonight!

I felt great while I was doing it, but my body is feeling all fatigued now and I think I need to get to bed a litle on the early side. I modified a workout suggested by one of the people in my Swimming for Cardio team on SparkPeople. It's not a very active team for message posting, but there are some good workout ideas. I think all of those ladies could totally kick my butt in the pool.

My routine tonight:

150 swim - free
250 kick - free up, fly back

3 sets of
200, rest :30
150, rest :20
100, rest :10
50, rest :30
Set one: Build (I did the 50 in :43, which made me happy. I wasn't really swimming all out and it's been a long time since I've timed a 50 so I thought that wasn't too shabby)
Sets two and three: 200 and 150 medium, 100 sprint, 50 slow

10 25's, rest :10 - odds easy, evens sprint

200 swim

I haven't done sprints in ages and it was fun to swim all out for 25 yards.

Unreality

Just in case you thought that pictures of celebrities had anything whatsoever to do with reality.


Courtesy of Big Fat Deal.

Ego Boosting

Despite the fact that my scale is persistently adding a couple of pounds to last week's weight (hmph!), I had a good morning ego-wise. Usually I can just wear jeans to work so I haven't tried on my dress slacks in a bit. However, if I'm at my other job where I work about 8-10 hours a week, I have to be business casual Monday-Thursday. Because I've been working in such casual environments for over a year now I only have 2 pairs of slacks: the regular slacks, and the too tight Ann Taylor Loft slacks that used to fit, but haven't for awhile.

This morning I tried on the regular slacks and they are falling off of me. The only thing keeping them on is my HUGE rear end that continues to be huge and always will be huge and was even pretty huge when I was a size 7 way back when. Whatever. I'm bootylicious. I can handle that.

So I tried on the Ann Taylor slacks and they look super cute again. Hooray!

In other news, 90 laps last night. I did a routine, just to see if I could, and paid for it with a sore throat and more of a cough last night. I guess my body isn't quite up to snuff yet. Did I mention I'm a bad patient? Despite feeling every stroke in my tired arms, I did manage to do my last 100 of the set(laps 76-80) in 1:37, so I'm happy about that.

Emotional Eating

I don't usually think of myself as much of an emotional eater. Sometimes I recgonize that I soothe myself with something tasty, but mostly, I eat from boredom and wanting something to do with myself. I can be very antsy and not want to sit still and snacking gives me something to do. Since I like food and food has always been a BIG part of my family's lives, it's what my mind turns to first when I'm bored. This is one of the reasons I crochet or play on my computer while I watch TV. Despite being fidgety, I'm not one of those skinny fidgety people because I consume calories as a result of my fidgetiness.

I got some bad news recently that has taken a bit of a toll on my hopefulness and confidence career-wise. Last night I went to the grocery store and on the way there I found myself thinking about all of the things I wanted to buy. Not the fruit and veggies and healthy foods that were on my list, but the yummy glowing rotisserie chicken leg quarters and a large container of deep dark chocolate ice cream.

Because I am fairly self-aware with regard to eating and eating disorders and unhealthy patterns and such, I recognized that immediately for what it was and frankly, it kind of stunned me. Right then, in that moment, food was what was going to make me feel better. Or at least that's what my head was telling me.

Once I got to the grocery store, I admit to lingering around the chicken, but I didn't even go into the ice cream aisle. It didn't help that I was actually hungry and knew I wouldn't be eating dinner for a couple of more hours. As soon as I got home I had a healthy snack and told myself that was ALL I was getting. No Thin Mint cookies sitting ever-so-temptingly on my shelf.*

So I'm proud of myself for staying on the straight and narrow, calorie-wise, but I was a little surprised at how readily my mind turned to food for solace. I don't know why I was so surprised since when I was neck-deep in depression I also happened to weigh 235 pounds. And my family is jam-packed with crummy relationships with food. Maybe I had hoped that somehow that particular quirk had passed me by.

I'm also proud of myself for meeting up with Jason and others, going to a Mexican restaurant and getting a salad, dressing on the side. I discovered that salsa is a pretty good salad dressing, actually.


*Speaking of which, I think this is the longest Girl Scout cookies have ever lasted in my home. I bought 3 boxes a month or so ago, and I just finished my box of Samoas** and am about a third of the way through the Thin Mints. I've been good at doling them out in portions on some random day when I let myself have a treat. Plus, truth be told, Jason ate about a third of the Samoas.

**Excuse me. Caramel Delites.

Water, Baby!

I'm back in the pool as of last night, which I'm very happy about. I planned to do 60 laps since I was still snotty and coughing (and feeling oh so pretty!). Once I started going, though, I realized I was okay. It felt SO amazing to be back in the pool. Only one week out of the water and starting my first lap was like coming home. No wonder my mom calls me "Water Baby."

My goal was to do a short warm up, 5 easy 200's and a short cool down. However, I was only coughing a tiny bit in between sets and wasn't having a problem while I was actually swimming, so I just kept going. 80 laps in all.

150 swim
250 kick

200
300 (because it just felt good)
400 (because I wanted to see if I could do it. I could and my time wasn't too awful.)
200

250 kick
250 swim

So far today I've walked about 4 miles and I really need to go to the grocery store and do some laundry so I'm calling it good in the exercise department. I'm seriously running out of food. I've been eating McDonald's yogurt parfaits for breakfast the last two mornings, which aren't the worst things in the world, but I miss my Stonyfield Farms yogurt. It just tastes better. However, 320 calories and $2.10 for 2 yogurt parfaits is not too shabby, although the blueberries taste like soggy mothballs and I always pick them out. Not that I know what soggy mothballs taste like. But if I had to take a guess I would say the blueberries in the McDonaldd's yogurt parfaits are a fair estimation.

I joined a May challenge at SparkPeople and in order to get my points I have to do strength training twice a week. I am discovering that just like cardio and eating right, taking the time to do weights is something that I have to make a habit of scheduling into my day. I haven't been very diligent with that, so hopefully this challenge will motivate me. I mean, those are 2 easy points that I would just feel silly not getting. My plan is to get up early two mornings and do it before work. I am not a morning person and know there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Woo Hoo

Apparently being sick agrees with me. I'm down 3 pounds this week!

Just As I Really Get Going

90 laps on Saturday:

200 swim
200 kick - free up, fly back

100 free, rest :30
200 free, rest :35
300 free, rest :40
400 free, rest :45
300 free, rest :35
200 free, rest :25
100 free (in 1:40)

150 kick - free up, fly back
100 swim

After a great week last week exercise-wise, I have a cold this week. I did get out yesterday while the weather was beautiful and walked a few miles down by the river. Today, though, I feel worse and am just sitting around in my PJ's, working from home. I'm glad I have that luxury.

I'm hoping that tomorrow maybe I can either walk a couple of miles again or even go to the pool for a short swim. I hate being sick, but everyone else around me has been sick so why should I be any different? Today is supposed to be my super high-calorie day with the calorie cycling, but I'm just going to hit the bottom of my range (around 1400) and call it good.

So today I'm feeling kind of annoyed to not be able to swim and a little stir-crazy. Sometimes it's nice to have a lazy day at home, but only when it's voluntary.

Magical Elixir

Seriously, could someone bottle endorphins? Or hook me up to an endorphin IV? Or give me a little vial and an endorphin junkie syringe? Because after my swim tonight I was BUZZing. I felt strong and powerful and like I wasn't going to take any crap from no one, not nohow.

I've since calmed down.

I found this great swim workout site. Since all of the workouts are a little above my abilities, I modified one tonight to get 2250 yards, or 90 laps.

200 swim
200 kick - 50 back;150 free up, fly back

1 200
3 150's - 150 kick free up, fly back; 150 swim; 150 kick free up, fly back
5 100's on the 2:00
rest 1:00
7 50's on the 1:00
rest 2:00
8 25's - fly for 1, 4 and 7 (and I just have to say by that 7th 25 it was a miracle that I could get my arms out of the water. I was probably flopping around just a bit. Or maybe a lot.)

150 swim


Tonight my arm is a little sore from all of this swimming. I've iced it, but I'm taking tomorrow off from the swimming and just letting it rest. Then it's back to the pool on Saturday afternoon.

My roommate and I had a little debate tonight about the term "lap." In my world, lap is one length of the pool. In her world lap equals a complete back and forth and length equals one length of the pool. Which I guess when I think about it makes sense since a lap around a track is a complete circle so a lap around the pool should be the complete circle too, right? But I swear my coaches called the 25 yard stretch a "lap."

Oh, the exciting things we talk about in my house.

Wednesday Swim

90 laps last night.

I have been really making an effort to mix up my workouts lately. Last night I did the following (inspired by Heather at Funnymoods, who is way more hardcore than me seeing as how she's training for a triathlon, but is a good resource for workout ideas):

200 free
200 kick - 150 free up, fly back; 50 backstroke

100 free, rest :30
200 free, rest :35
300 free, rest :40
400 free, rest :45
300 free, rest :40
200 free, rest :30
100 free

200 kick - 150 free up, fly back; 50 backstroke

The thing that I think I'm most proud of is, well, that I did it, but also that I managed to do the last 100 in the set at 1:40. So even though I was pretty pooped, I kept my speed up to a decent* level.

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to walk home from work today or hit the pool again. On the one hand, I know it's good to mix it up and keep it interesting for my body, plus my legs are pretty sore today and may be useless in the pool. On the other hand, I feel like I should take advantage of the pool while I can. I found out Tuesday that the last day it's open is May 24th now, rather than the 6th, so I'll have a couple more weeks before I have to join a gym.

* Sometimes it kind of depresses me that my idea of a decent speed now has absolutely no relation to what a decent speed was when I competed. However, I have to remind myself that I'm heavier, I'm older, and I haven't competed in a long time. I really look forward to shedding 32 more pounds and totally zooming through the water. At one end of the pool they have posted the records set by various members of the high school swim team that swims there and it's really good inspiration.

Cheesecake!

Monday I did strength training because the pool was closed. Soreness. Then yesterday I wound up walking about 4 miles over the course of the day. Then last night I went swimming, but I was kind of dragging and I only swam 70 laps. When I told my roommate that, she laughed at my "only" 70 laps. Well, it's disappointing to me because last week I did 2 days of 100 laps. I'm going again tonight so hopefully I'll do better.

I ate some cheesecake last night. Shhh. Don't tell. Yesterday was my high cal day and I totally saved up. Jason had a gift card to the Cheesecake Factory so I got the Santa Fe Salad with no tortilla strips and the dressing on the side (which I barely used) and then splurged with half a piece of Godiva chocolate cheesecake.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Heaven.

If you frequent the CCF, then I'm going to tell you right now that you do NOT want to know how many calories are in a piece of their cheesecake. If you are a masochist, however, you can find calorie counts at Calorie King.

The thing that surprised me is that desserts like the Apple Dumpling and the Blackout Cake are actually much worse calorie-wise than the majority of their cheesecakes. I would think, you know, CHEESE cake. Wouldn't that be just about the worst thing you could eat? Apparently not.

A Little Glitch in the Plan

I just found out today that the pool I swim at is closing for renovations on May 6! To be honest, it really, really needs the renovations, but that's a good 2 months before any of the public outdoor pools open for the summer.

So I think I may be joining a gym. To me, the money is worth it at this point because I don't want to get off track. I'm in my swimming zone/weight loss zone. Plus, knowing I've already paid for the month will be a good motivator to get me to the pool. And as another plus, the gym will be open much more flexible hours than the community pool, which is open for lap swimming only a couple of hours a day. That means I can fit the gym around my schedule instead of the other way around, which is what I've been doing for the past few months.

I am really going to miss the convenience, though. The community pool is only a block from my house and I just trot on over there. Depending on which club I decide to go with I'll either be taking a couple of trains to get there or driving 20 minutes. While typing that I'm pretty sure I just decided to do the one where I drive for 20 minutes. Plus, the suburban clubs are sometimes a teensy bit cheaper than the clubs in the city.

For the last plus, it will also give me the flexibility to hop on the elliptical if I just don't feel like getting in the pool one day and I want to mix it up a little.

There seem to be a lot of pluses to this plan. Hopefully the monthly rate won't be too obscene.

It's A Good Pain

I have one word for you: Lunges.

My bum hurts.

In other news, I'm down 3.2 pounds from my official weigh-in last Thursday! Looks like my additional muscle has finally decided to start proving itself and getting rid of some of that pesky fat.

Tuesday: 1787 calories; 100 laps

I kicked my butt last night in the pool, in the name of losing 15 pounds by Memorial Day. I've been getting a little complacent with my workouts so I am working on mixing up my routine. Usually I do my warm up, long set, kicking, cool down. Last night I got in some backstroke, although the pool has been packed lately and swimming backstroke while sharing a lane isn't the most fun thing in the world. I wanted to do some butterfly, but again, sharing a lane. My arms pretty much span the lane so there's really no way to do butterfly unless I have my own. This was my routine last night:

Warm up:
250 swim - free
300 kick - free up, fly back
Swim:
4 50's - backstroke
250 kick - free up, fly back
400 - free
5 50's kick - 3 backstroke, 2 free up, fly back
6 100's - free, moderately fast, 20 seconds rest
Cool down:
250 swim - free

I did a little butterfly on Saturday and was fine, but last night when I did backstroke I discovered something. It hurts. My left arm is fine now when I do free, but last night it popped and hurt during my follow through on the backstroke stroke. I've never had a problem with back before, so this is new. I had planned to do 6 50's back last night, but after 4 my arm just couldn't do anymore. I iced it when I got home. Maybe I just need to work back up to it since it's been awhile. Hopefully the problem will go away like it did for free.

Mixing it up and doing fast sets made me feel strong and exhilerated after my workout, instead of exhausted.

I put a chart above my stats showing my current calorie cyclying...um...cycle. As you can see, yesterday I ate 1787 calories, which, if you don't know, is an OBSCENE amount of food, especially when you're eating healthy and your food doesn't have a lot of calories. I found myself looking around the kitchen last night thinking, "Okaaaay...what can I eat now?"

My official weigh in isn't until Friday morning, but as of this morning I'm down another pound at 193.4. Woot! Apparently eating piles of food is working. Who knew?

Just Plugging Away

I'm just doing it. The eating well, the exercising. It's happening. Every day it is kind of a struggle. I feel all proud of myself and disciplined, but know that it's a slippery slope full of chicken McNuggets and ice cream back to eating whatever I want again.

I have some accountability now - aside from this blog. I joined a SparkPeople challenge to lose 15 pounds by Memorial Day. We all have a buddy to check our food and exercise logs and email us motivation. I think it's funny that my buddy is named "Kerry." I'm an only child and to compensate I invented a whole slew of imaginary brothers and sisters when I was very small, including an identical twin sister named Kerry. SparkPeople Kerry doesn't look a thing like me, and she would probably think I was completely nuts and not want to be my challenge buddy anymore if I told her that little tidbit, but I like knowing it.

While I've been losing inches like crazy, the weight hasn't been exactly falling off. 8 pounds in 2 months. But 12.3 inches. I always have to throw in that "but" to explain to myself why my small jeans fit me now. So this whole 15 pounds in the next 6 weeks or so is pretty daunting. I have a few thoughts up my sleeve:

1) The firm belief that my increased muscle will finally kick in and start burning more calories like lean muscle is supposed to do.

2) My little 5 pound weights are coming out from under my bed. I've been great with the cardio, but have totally slacked on the strength training. I can work my arms while I'm watching TV and if my hours with Denise Austin (courtesy of the Lifetime channel and my Tivo) taught me nothing, it's always best to multitask. Work your triceps while in a squat. Do bicep curls while you lunge around the room. My theory: more lean muscle = MORE calories burned.

3) My weekends off have now become just Sundays off and I'm still going to be very mindful of what I'm eating on Sundays.

If I don't make 15 pounds, I'm not going to flip out, but it's nice to have a goal. And to have buddy accountability.

If I do lose the 15, that would take me down to 180. Whoa. Um, I can't really remember when I was that weight. Junior year of college? Maybe? Ooo, now I really want it!

Control Freak

I am really getting boring with this whole weight loss thing. Last night I bored my roommate and my boyfriend to death talking about my new favorite website and how cool all the tools are and how I love keeping track of all of this stuff.

I don't know what it is. I think eating healthy and exercising and monitoring it all very closely with a very specific plan in mind gives me a much needed sense of control. Over the past couple of years I have become much less crazed about having a plan for everything. A year and a half ago I moved to DC with a clear plan in mind about how I was going to network and search and pound the pavement and do what it took to find a job in health care law and/or policy.

However, meeting my boyfriend a few days before I left Boston threw a whole wrench in the works. I spent the next several months doing a long-distance relationship and trying to figure out if I was moving back to Boston or staying in DC. My nicely laid plans for the future that I smugly thought I had figured out back when I decided to move to DC were suddenly all out the window.

Add to that the stresses of a long-distance relationship and feeling like I didn't know what exactly our status was with regard to the future and then not being able to find ANY sort of work in DC for the first several weeks I was there. I felt out of control.

I stopped keeping track of anything. I started popping over to the nearby McDonald's for McNuggets and Wendy's for a Frosty on a regular basis. One I started doing contract work, exhaustion set in as I crammed in the mandatory minimum 60 hours of work in 4-5 days so that I could spend every other weekend with Jason. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that the only way I get through extreme physicial stress is by regular workouts. So I joined a gym and went almost every day, which helped. I didn't lose any weight, but I maintained, which I think is pretty miraculous in a job where you sit for 12-15 hours a day.

Eventually I decided to move back to Boston and I finally realized it was okay to not have a plan. That was a major lesson I learned in DC. I have always had a plan and for the first time in my life I realized I had NO idea what was going to happen in any aspect of my life. And I was shocked to discover that I could live with that.

I moved back to Boston with the promise of another contract job and a hope that networking with the attorneys I knew here would find me something at least kind of related to what I wanted to do with my life. I hoped that my relationship would eventually get to the point where we would get married.

Now I'm sort of in a holding pattern. I think there are things on the horizon, both career and relationship-wise, but I can't really be sure. I have no control over the job thing because the market is saturated with attorneys and I am completely dependent on whether someone likes my resume enough to actually talk to me. I have little control over the relationship because, while I could leave, I don't really want to, and there is another person involved, who also has his own choices to make and freedom to do what he wants. You can't really have absolute control when someone else's emotions and desires come into play in an equal amount to yours.

Sometimes I feel like I took a giant step backward, heightened by the fact that I'm living in the same apartment I lived in right before I left Boston. Sometimes I am thrilled to be here and to have great roommates and a boyfriend who loves me. I like Boston in a way I never did before, appreciating its character and charm.

At the beginning of this year I set a goal to get healthy again, having gained back 20 of the 15 pounds I lost in 2005 (yes, that's 5 more than I lost). Keeping meticulous track of food and calories burned, and commiserating with others who are also working on weight loss, helps me to stay in control of my body when I am in control of absolutely nothing else in my life.

I think the fact that I am satiated by the diet control and am not experiencing panic attacks where my throat feels like it is closing and I can hardly breathe because I have NO IDEA where my life is headed, is a major improvement over a year and a half ago. I don't feel like the world is going to end anymore because I lack a sense of omniscience. Instead, I can be okay with not knowing.

However, apparently I'm becoming a bore.

Weighing In

Up 1.2 pounds. Boo. However, last week was kind of a no holds barred vacation in Florida so I suppose I should be happy I'm not up more considering how much fried food I ate.

However, down another inch. So, you know, building muscle is a good thing.

I just upped my calories on SparkPeople because I had really underestimated how many calories I burned per week. It seems illogical to think that increasing calories is going to add to weight loss, but if I'm not eating enough my body thinks I'm starving and holds onto the weight. Fervently. The summer I lost 15 pounds I was eating a lot of food, now that I think about it, but I was swimming and walking a lot too.

Be Nice and Share

Tonight I discovered that I'm not as selfish as I thought. I can, in fact, share a lane at the pool without wanting to hurt the person I'm sharing with.

My one criterion is that the person actually know what he or she is doing with regard to swimming. Also, it's nice if we swim at a similar pace. Someone who consistently barrels by me makes me feel kind of like a slug and usually creates a lot of wake.

Monday: 80 laps
Tuesday: 90 laps

Wednesday

80 laps tonight, 32 in 13:15. She's back!

Actually, I think my good time is due more to my new swimsuit than to some vastly improved swimming technique. I had a new sassy red TYR suit that reminded me how awesome it is to be streamlined. My one complaint about the suit is that there is no give AT ALL in the straps. I kind of feel like it's trying to fold me in half the way the straps pull down on my shoulders. I haven't had a real competition suit in awhile so I'm going to hope that's how they all start out and that the fabric will eventually start to ease up a little as the chemicals react on it.

But, boy, did I feel fast tonight.

If you swim laps, I urge you to stay away from the Club Swim brand. I bought the black one with the red piping. Cute, right? Yeah, it was cute, but the elastic around the bum wasn't that great from day one and the suit was constantly riding up. I admit to having a long torso, but this was kind of ridiculous.

Additionally, the chlorine ate through the elastic in a very short amount of time. I think I just got the suit a month or so ago and I had to throw it out on Monday night. Thank goodness for lining, because otherwise I would have been showing the entire pool all my bits and pieces when I got out of the water on Monday night. The suit had felt kind of loose while I swam, but it wasn't until I got out that I realized the elastic had fallen apart all over the entire suit. So much for Club Swim.

In other news, my arm didn't hurt at all tonight and only popped a tiny bit at the beginning of my workout. I iced it afterwards anyway. Better safe than sorry.

Food: +1410 calories
Exercise: -992 calories

I'm trying to do this calorie cycling thing where I eat at the top range of my calories for a few days and then do one day at the low range and repeat. It's supposed to get your metabolism used to running on the high range so when you eat in the low range you actually lose weight. My range is 1360-1710.

I really honestly tried today to get up near 1700 calories, but 1410 was the best I could do. A) I wasn't very hungry today in general, and B) I don't know if you know, but 1700 calories is a lot of food, especially since I don't want to just eat a lot of crap solely to get my calories up. That seems like the wrong way to do it somehow.

Swimming!

I was able to go swimming tonight. Hooray! After a week of taking anti-inflammatories regularly (ie, when I remembered), I swam without really hurting my arm. There was some popping going on, and after I was done, my arm felt stiff. However, I'm icing it now, and I think I should be A-OK.

I'm so relieved. This looks like a relatively minor problem after all. I had these scary visions last week of never really being able to swim again. Because I can be a little fatalistic like that.

My times were way off, but I was trying to take it easy.

Calories today:
Food: +1388
Exercise: -1055

Get It Done

It feels different this time, this whole losing weight thing. The last time I got healthy, I had a very specific goal: get through the Bar exam. I swam so that I wouldn't feel completely overwhelmed by the stress. And it showed. The closer the Bar got, the faster I got. I liked keeping track of what I was eating and feeling good about the food I put into my body because it gave me a sense of control at a time when I really had no control over my future. All I could do was study, study study. Would it be enough? It never felt like it would be enough.

After the Bar, all bets were off. I went to California for 2 weeks to visit friends, determined to get back in gear once I got back. But it was too easy to not do anything about staying healthy. I started a long-distance relationship and spent time shuttling between DC and Boston. I was depressed because I couldn't find work. The weight kept coming off for another few weeks because my metabolism was still flying, so I thought I would be ok.

Then it started coming back on. I gained it all back and then some, which is what usually happens.

I didn't really think it would take me 1 year and 5 months to get back on the ball. Now that I am, I feel really good about myself and confident that this time, finally, I will get back to a normal weight. The weight where my a** isn't so huge that the only place I can buy pants without them tugging into those oh-so-attractive whiskers at my upper thigh is Lane Bryant.

This time my goal isn't to make it to an event with a distinct date. My goal is to lose 37 pounds (35.8 now) and live more healthy in general. I've set my next birthday in October as a date to shoot for, but, you know, if the weight was gone before then, I wouldn't complain.

Already I feel better about myself in general. The weight is coming off slowly (which I realize is healthy), but just knowing I'm doing this right, and feeling so energized gives me a more positive outlook. I can do this.

Thursday

Weighed and measured tonight: down 1.2 pounds and 1.2 inches.

No exercise for today except for cleaning. The apartment really needed to be cleaned and my roommate and I did it. Now I just need to work on my bedroom...

1315 calories today.

Pressing Forward

After talking with a few people yesterday, it's really starting to sound like the problem with my arm is tendonitis. I'm taking an anti-inflammatory and I'm going to ice it when I get home from work tonight. I just find this really annoying and I feel OLD. I turn 30 and my body starts falling apart.

On the positive side, I did walk home yesterday and I'm going to walk home again today. According to SparkPeople my walking has me burning 489 calories a day. It's no 880 calories like I was getting from my swimming, but it will do while I'm resting my arm. The scale this morning told me I'm still going down, so if I can just exercise and control the calories, I'll be fine. I'm staying within my SparkPeople calories and working out way more than they're telling me to. I only need to burn 1400 calories per week to meet my goal and, including today's walk home, I already have 1858 calories burned in the first three days of the week.

I feel very lucky that the walking is even an option. When I lived in DC, I could never have just decided to walk home from work if for some reason I couldn't get to the gym, but here in Boston it works. And yesterday early evening was beautiful! I hated Daylight Savings Time on Sunday morning, but walking home in the fading sunlight is much better than darkness.

Anyway, I'm not going to list out everything I eat anymore, I'll just note my exercise and the calories I consume.

Tuesday:
Exercise: Walked about 4 miles, -489 calories
Food Calories: +1500 (I was under my calorie count for the day and then I had a glass of juice and that shot me right up. It's amazing how many calories are in a teeny glass of juice)

I Have No Idea What's Wrong With My Arm

My arm is still hurting today. I think I pushed it too hard last night by doing the 90 laps. I was going to go swimming tonight, but now I'm thinking I should just walk home from work for exercise.

I've been doing research online this morning, and I can't figure out what's wrong. There are two distinct arm injuries common to swimmers, and I don't seem to have either of them. Swimmers Shoulder is caused by overuse and poor technique. Also by breathing on one side exclusively. The pain is in the shoulder and radiates to the clavicle. While I do breathe exclusively on my right side (I need to work on that), the pain isn't in my shoulder. I've also been told I have good technique so I don't think my technique is straining my arm.

The other possibility is Swimmers Elbow (like tennis elbow), which is caused by overuse. However, from what I can tell on the sites, the pain of that is mostly in the lower arm and affects the ability to grip things. That isn't my problem either.

The pain I'm having is in the exterior muscle of the upper arm, down near my elbow. It only hurts when I swim, although it's sore today because of my workout last night.

I've never had this issue before and I've been swimming for years. When I started back several weeks ago, I progressed slowly through 40, then 50, 60, 70, 80 and now 90 laps per workout session. I used to swim 120 laps at times and was hoping to get back up to that. This is just really frustrating.

Pushing Through the Pain

I'm hardcore, yo.

I went swimming tonight and 2 laps in my arm started hurting again like last Wednesday. It was a tiny bit sore on Thursday, but didn't hurt at all on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or today. There is something about a freestyle stroke that the muscle just isn't liking.

But I still did 90 laps. The further along I got, either it started hurting less, or the endorphins dulled the pain. I'm inclined to think it was all endorphins because when I got out and went into the locker room and wound down a little, suddenly it hurt to lift things with that arm. I'm not trying to hurt myself worse, but I'm in a swimming groove, and I can't lose it. After my shower I put some Tiger Balm* on the muscle, and that seems to be helping. Of course, now I smell like a medicine cabinet. Good thing my neighbor at work is on vacation this week.

So 90 laps, 32 in 14:10 (boo! I'm blaming my sore arm)


* The tiger growls on the website. Just a warning.

The Plan

I have a new plan that I really think I can live with. It's called "Weekends Off." Actually the last plan I was on at ediets let me take one day off a week, so it's a similar idea, just with another day. Basically I eat well all week long and then don't kill myself about it over the weekend. I mean, I'm not going to actively seek out the bad stuff and I'm going to be reasonable about it. For instance, at the bridal shower on Saturday I had a sliver of cheesecake and a small brownie, instead of the full size cheesecake slab that was my former inclination.

Sunday was not as great. The actual food I ate was healthy, mostly some rotisserie chicken I pulled the skin off of and tabbouleh with whole wheat flatbread, but I had a few little treats, prompted partly by commiserating with one of my roommates who was sad. However, I only had maybe 6 of the dark chocolate Cadbury mini eggs I bought, savoring them in a way that I haven't really done with treats in the past. I've been really good at the whole plunking down on the sofa with a bag of something fatty or sweet and nibbling away without really noticing. Parceling out 6 little eggs and putting the rest of the bag away makes me treasure those 6 eggs.

I weighed myself this morning and I'm fine. So I think this may work. Today I'm eating healthy and tonight I'll be swimming my bum off.

I'm going to make a salad for dinner tonight based on what's left of my vegetable stash in the fridge, plus a couple of Costco purchases, that I think sounds divine: Spinach, broccoli sprouts, celery, salmon and tabbouleh. I would like to add some beans - black or garbanzo - but I don't have any in my cupboards and will make do with what I have.

B: Peanut butter Kashi Go Lean bar, 290 cal. I was running errands and just grabbed it on my way out the door. Very handy.
L: Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad. Here is why SparkPeople is my new favorite site. Not only do they have the salad listed, but they have the salad and the extra almonds, crispy rice noodles and dressing each listed separately. Brilliant! That little packet of almonds is really 190 calories? Yikes! So with my rationing of almonds and dressing, my salad was 390 cal. After doing the detox diet, I find that I need very little salad dressing anymore. The veggies, fruit and chicken taste good enough by themselves.
S: 1 1/2 slices of my roommate's oatmeal bread, about 105 cal.; medium pear, 98 cal; 15 baby carrots, 57 cal.
D: Spinach/salmon/tabbouleh salad, about 259 cal.

As of right now, my calories are on the low side. For my goal of having lost 37 more pounds by my birthday in October, I should be eating 1370-1720 calories a day and I'm at 1198. Maybe I'll have some popcorn for a snack later.

SparkPeople also says I only need to burn 1400 calories a week via exercise, but last week I burned 3384. If I keep it up, hopefully I'll make my goal before my birthday.

Friday

I got Chinese food last night and got hot and sour soup and an entree of steamed chicken with ginger and scallions. That's right, I ordered from the steamed menu, even though the beef with broccoli sounded so, so good. But I have no control over the sauces and I'm trying to stay on this losing trend. After walking the 3.2 miles home last night in cold, COLD weather, I was going to get a salad at the little place on the corner near my house, but it's closed due to a fire. That's a shame for them - and for me. I really wanted that salad...

I had planned on the salad so I had nothing thawed for dinner and was pooped anyway from battling the elements so I turned to the Chinese menu. The steamed stuff was okay. I added some salt to it, actually. I could make something better at home, and have control over what exactly goes into it, which is probably the smartest thing to do.

I discovered the coolest website today thanks to Nicole: Sparkpeople. It's a free site where you can keep track of your exercising and your diet for each day and they have a pretty extensive database to help you figure out calories burned and calories in your food and everything else. I spent, um, a lot of time on it this afternoon. It's just so fun and they have some interesting articles.

When I'm in this exercising/eating right/losing weight mode, I become extremely interested in all things weight loss related and pour over other people's before and after shots. I think it's all fascinating right now.


B: Salt Bagel 320 cal.; lite cream cheese about 80 cal.
L: Hot and sour soup. I really have no idea on the calorie count. At Calorie King they only list specific brands. P.F. Changs is 650 calories for a bowl, while Panda Express is 110 calories for 12 oz, which is about how much I have. I'm flying blind with that one.
S: Banana about 90 cal.
D: Cheesecake Factory with friends! After scoping out the menu beforehand, I decided to get the Santa Fe Salad, consisting of Lime-Marinated Chicken, Fresh Corn, Black Beans, Cheese, Tortilla Strips, Tomato and Mixed Lettuces, without the tortilla strips and plus avocado. Dressing on the side. I'm starting to feel like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally with all my substitutions and on the sides. It was awesome. Seriously, with all that yummy stuff on the salad, I hardly put any dressing on at all. I used Sparkpeople (see above) to get a basic idea on the calorie count of all the salad ingredients and I think it wound up being about 511 cal. Actually, I think I credited too many calories for the chicken, so maybe 60 calories less than that. Not too shabby for dinner out.

*Squeal*

OK, so last night was weighing and measuring night. This past week I lost 2 pounds AND 2.5 inches! This brings my 5 week total to minus 5.2 pounds, BUT minus 5.8 inches! In 5 weeks! Crazy. My body really likes the swimming.

I was a little elated when I figured that out. This morning just for kicks I tried on my 2 pairs of too tight jeans and not only could I get them both buttoned and zippered, but there was a minimal amount of muffin top. They're still a little too bum-clinging to wear, but it's only a matter of time. I'm just really excited! My boyfriend told me that he was really proud of me and proud of all the hard work I've been doing, which was very sweet.

The one sad part: the loss of my ample chest. Sigh. I figured that would probably happen, but I was hoping they wouldn't decrease THAT much. I think of those 5.8 inches, probably 3 of them were in my bust. Oh well. I am still bootylicious, and always will be.

Real Food = A Little Scary

Today is the first day off of the Detox Diet, which means A) I can eat grains and dairy, and B) I need to start keeping actual track of my food again. I made a little spreadsheet for the detox so that I could make sure I got something from all of the categories each day because there are many categories and I can't keep that all in my head. However, I didn't write down everything that went into my mouth because my main goal of the last week and a half was to stay on the diet and yet somehow not keel over from the hunger pangs. Quite a feat.

My inaugural grain this morning was a Kashi blueberry waffle. Yum! Although I plan to give myself the treat of a bagel sometime in the next week or so, I'm determined to keep losing weight and keep eating well. Seeing the pounds go down feels WAY too good to give up. I've said it so many times before: I know how to do this, it's just sticking to it in the face of eating out with the boyfriend and little treats at friends' houses and on and on and on. As much as I may want to rage against the genetics that gave me my crappy metabolism, I need to just suck it up and realize I do have to be strict with my diet and I do have to exercise as much as I possibly can.

But really, I feel so powerful both physically and mentally when I'm eating healthy and exercising. It's a good feeling.

So I'm going to be honest. As of a month and a half ago, I had packed on a few more pounds than I let on. My official weigh-in is tonight, but last night I stepped on the scale just to see, and the real story is that from my top weight back in January, I have now lost 11.2 pounds. I just didn't want to admit to myself (or anyone else for that matter), how much I had actually put back on due to sheer laziness and not caring what went in my mouth. But 11.2 is actually a pretty good number, so I'm going to own up to my foibles and my triumphs.


B: Kashi blueberry waffle 85 cal.; Stonyfield Farms FF raspberry yogurt 130 cal.
S: Pear 96 cal.
L: Yummy chicken and veg medley I made last night. Um, maybe about 180 cal. for the chicken. The vegetables don't really have a lot of calories. I'll say 150-200 cal. to be safe, but based on the calorie look ups I just did for the individual veggies, I doubt it's that much.
S: Banana 100 cal.; Large Orange 86 cal.

I'm So Mad At My Left Arm Right Now

90 laps last night; 32 in 13:20.

60 laps tonight.

60.

Grrrr.

About 2 1/2 laps into my workout, my left upper arm started hurting. It was sort of this stabby pain right in the middle of my tricep. I kept going, thinking it was a muscle cramp and I could work it out. I stopped after 4 laps, the stabby pain having gone to sort of this all around awful feeling in the upper arm, with the muscle feeling a little bit like it was tying itself into knots. So I tried kicking for 10 laps and then went back to swimming. 3 laps later I was at the wrong end of the pool from my kickboard and water bottle, clutching my arm and grimacing.

Over the course of the next forty-five minutes or so I managed to get 3 more laps in, bringing my grand total of swimming tonight to 10. The other 50 laps were kicking, so at least my legs got a heck of a workout.

My left arm has always been a little wonky at the beginning of my workouts. When I pull the stroke through, something clicks and it kind of twinges a little, but it stops after the first 5 or 6 laps. Today the clicking was there, but the pain was so much worse than the previous twinges and it wouldn't go away.

It didn't hurt last night after my workout, it didn't hurt today. I don't know what's going on, but I hope my body shapes up fast. I'm totally in my swimming groove and I don't want to lose it all. I'm going to walk the 3.2 miles home from work tomorrow and try again with the swimming either Friday or Saturday. Hopefully this is just a temporary setback.

UPDATE: My roommate who knows a little bit about physiology checked out my arm and diagnosed a big muscle knot. She said since the pain was localized, it was muscle-related, whereas if the pain radiated, it would be something more serious. She found the knot and worked on it a little bit, but I think I'll just hold off on swimming for a few days because it's still a little sore and I would rather baby the muscle for a little bit, than just make it worse and not be able to swim for a week or something. Sigh.

Maybe I'm Detoxed, Maybe I'm Just Hungry

I am sort of dubious as to the detox value of this diet. I don't feel particularly detoxed. Maybe the physical rollercoaster I was on last week was my body detoxifying, but it may have also just been hunger. One day I would be up and energetic and the next day I would feel vaguely like passing out all day. Then Friday I got a migraine that sent me home from work early. I broke the rules of the diet and took some Excedrin because I had plans and I wasn't going to just sit there feeling like I was going to throw up and not do anything about it. My stomach was so queasy that I just lay on the couch with an ice pack on my head, sipping some juice, willing the Excedrin to kick in.

If that was a side effect of the diet, I'm not a fan.

Also, there are testimonials galore concerning the weight loss on the actual day of the fast, but I didn't lose any weight. In fact, I've gained back a couple of pounds that came off last week. I guess my body is now adjusted to the fruits, veggies and protein and is back into packing it on mode, which seems to be its natural state. I have a feeling once I start eating carbs again, I'm going to gain back any weight I lost last week.

So, Fast Track Detox Diet by Ann Louise Gittleman: Meh.

I will give her credit for reminding me about being hyper aware of nutrition labels. Also, the limited diet has made me super creative because if I had to eat the exact same thing every day I would get really bored. For instance, last night I made a dish that I think I'll call "...and the Kitchen Sink Too." I basically pulled out all the containers of veggies that I prepped last week and threw it all in a pan with some chicken. Onions, garlic, canned plum tomatoes (organic, of course, from Trader Joe's), celery, yellow squash, zucchini, baby bella mushrooms, bean sprouts and daikon. I planned to put in broccoli too, but I forgot. It turned out really well and I have some for my lunch today.

80 laps yesterday; 32 in 13:25. Tt first I thought it was 14:25 because it's really hard to read that little clock and I figured that the 13:15 last week was just a crazy one off, but I kept checking the clock as I did my next set of kicking and sure enough, it was 13:25. Woo hoo! Especially considering last night was one of those nights when I felt like I was swimming through pea soup. I think the water in the pool was a little too warm and a little too high for the lane lines to absorb all the wake. I was definitely absorbing some wake from the guy in the next lane.

Oh, and just a little consumer warning for anyone else who swims laps. My favorite place to buy equipment and suits is Swim Outlet because their prices are super cheap. I mean, comparatively. In a world where your standard TYR suit is $69, cheap is relative. Anyway, they sell a line of products called Club Swim, which I've never heard of, but they have suits that looks just like TYR and Speedo for only $20 or so. I figured I would give it a shot. Well, the suit looks great and is lined and is actually big enough for my bum (which is amazing for a competition suit).

However, last night I realized why the suit was only $20. When I was rinsing it out, I noticed that there are already several spots where the chlorine has eaten through the elastic, which, if you don't know, renders those spots completely see through. I'm getting more comfortable with prancing around on the deck of the community pool on my way in and out of the water, but I'm not THAT comfortable. I've only had the suit for a little more than a month or so. I would complain to the company, but, really, it's a $20 suit.

Let's Hear It for Friday

I've decided I like this home body fat test, mostly because it tells me that based on my measurements my body fat is actually much less than the BMI people would have me believe. That's what I've been trying to tell everyone!

As of last night I'm down another couple of pounds and .8 inches. Yay. Actually last night I was very enthusiastic about it, but I'm having another spacey day today on the Detox Diet and can't seem to muster up another exclamation point.

I will tell you some good things I've noticed:

1) I didn't look half bad in some of the suits I tried on yesterday, although I'm still teetering precariously on that ledge between misses and women's sizes. I wound up with a skirt with a W after it and a jacket from misses.

2) My used to be loose, but have been tight for quite some time jeans are finally getting loose-ish again.

3) I think I can feel myself getting smaller, bit by bit.

4) The tops of my hands, where the fingers join the palms, have gone from being dimpled to flat and ligamenty. I realize this isn't a scientific observation, but it's a way I gauge my progress.