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.

As God Is My Witness, I May Never Eat Carbs or Dairy Again

I don't know how detoxed I'm getting, but tonight I did some preliminary weighing and measuring (Thursday is my official night), and I've lost 2.4 pounds since Monday and also definitely lost an inch or two since last Thursday. I'll find out the official numbers tomorrow.

Also, I rocked it in the pool. Since starting back with the swimming my best time has been 32 in 14:20. Tonight I did 32 in 13:15. What? That's just crazy. I mean, I'm happy, but it's crazy.

Good News/Bad News

I have an interview. Yay!

I now HAVE to buy a new suit. Boo!

It's impossible for me to find a suit that fits. Here's hoping and praying that this suit searching expedition goes better than all the others. My suit is old and shoddy and the jacket is slightly lighter than the skirt thanks to having been left in my car (Whoops!). As you can see, I HAVE to get a new suit.


70 laps last night. I think I did 32 in 14:20, but I'm not sure because I couldn't really see the clock and my contacts go a little wonky when I have the goggles on for a long time.

I'm not keeping track of food really because of the detox plan. Just know that so far today I have had a LOT of vegetables, several fruits and a couple of chicken breasts.

So, So Hungry...

Last night I sort of had two dinners. First I had some salmon with steamed broccoli. Then a couple of hours later I had some chicken and 2 clementines. I was so hungry. Stomach growling and hurting hungry. I am a big fan of fruits and vegetables, but substantively, there's just not a lot there. The salad I just ate for lunch probably had a grand total of 52 calories before I put the chicken on top.

And I didn't go swimming last night because by the time I got home from work I was completely famished. I am bound and determined to go tonight though.

So today I've tried to modify my food a little. I brought more protein to work to eat throughout the day and I brought some more fruit. Plus, C, the co-worker I'm doing this with, thinks she found a smoothie place where we can adjust the smoothies to the point of fitting into the diet. I hope it works out because I'm really looking forward to a smoothie break in another hour or two.

Detoxification

A friend at work and I are doing a Detox Diet together. I think calling it a "diet" is misleading, since the goal really isn't to lose a lot of weight, despite the tabloid-esque statements on the book's cover.

My friend was looking to do a detox and bought this book a few weeks ago. After she read it, she loaned it to me and I thought I might like to try it, so we decided to do it together, for camaraderie and motivation. The program has a 7-day prequel, a 1-day "fast", and a 3-day sequel.

I put "fast" in quotes because the plan has you make a cranberry drink and you alternate 8-12 oz of the cranberry drink with 8 oz of water every hour. In my church we're supposed to fast the first Sunday of every month, for either 2 meals or 24 hours, depending on the individual. And they're not kidding with the word "fast". No water, no food, nothing. After growing up doing that once a month (when I remember), I think I'll be okay with this cranberry drink fast.

The author's blather kind of gets on my nerves. When I looked at her picture, my immediate thought was, "She looks perky." Her picture fits the tone of the book. But if you get past the perkiness and some of her crazy extremeness, I think there are some good things underneath it. Plus, the plan is only for 11 days, and my friend and I already determinined if we feel bad, we'll stop. I managed to condense the entire plan into a 3 page outline that I used for shopping.

During the 7-day prequel and the 3-day sequel you basically eat fruits, vegetables and protein. No bread or dairy products. There are certain amounts of categories of food that you're supposed to get a minimum of. My favorite category is "liver-loving." Just say it out loud. You're also supposed to drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of water. I've had 80 oz today. Here's what I've eaten so far:

B: 2 eggs cooked in olive oil
L: Spinach salad with celery, mung bean sprouts, cucumbers and a little dressing I invented with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and oregano. The oregano isn't on the list, but it's just a little shake and she seems okay with herbs. Apple.
S: Pear, carrots and celery, 1 1/2 C. chicken broth and I may tackle the orange on my desk.

Looking at the list of things I've already eaten as my Snack, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm hungry. I'm kind of worried about swimming tonight and getting a headache. I just don't feel like eating any more vegetables right now. My body is used to carbohydrate fillers.

Another thing I have to get used to not having: my daily Diet Coke with Lime or Diet Dr. Pepper. I was planning on going cold turkey this weekend, but my roommate bought a 2 liter of Diet Dr. Pepper and asked me to help her finish it. So Saturday I had a big glass, Sunday I had a little glass and today I've had none at all. I think I would like a piece of my roommate's oatmeal bread more than a Diet Coke right now, so at least the caffeine craving isn't killing me.


70 laps on Friday, 32 in 14:30
80 laps on Saturday. I didn't do the long set because I was really feeling Thursday and Friday nights' swims. When I was on swim team, we had Wednesday mornings off so they could clean the pool, but I also see the utility of having practice for 2 days, then off for a day, then practice for 2 days. It gives your body the chance to recuperate a little, which right now in the early stages, I need.

How Many Calories Can I Eat?

Today I found a Nutrition Guide where you enter in your height, you weight and your goal weight and it tells you how many calories you need to maintain or lose based on whether or not you're exercising. So I entered in 5'6", 200 and 155. I don't know if I agree with this.

You need 2023.2 calories per day to reach your goal weight slowly and maintain that weight without exercise.

If you reduce your current caloric intake to 1727.4 calories per day you will lose one pound per week without exercise.

If you exercise for 30 minutes each day, you will be able to reach your goal weight with 2248.4 calories per day.

If you exercise for 60 minutes each day, you will be able to reach your goal weight with 2529.9 calories per day.

The calorie counts seem kind of high. Or maybe it's just that my metabolism is so slow, I need a lot less calories to see weight loss.

Let's Hear It for Accountability

I did walk to Harvard Square last night, so that was somewhere between 3.7 and 4 miles. Plus, my frozen world decided to melt a bunch, and then freeze over again just as I was starting my walk home. And my sneakers really don't have a lot of traction. So it was kind of like Extreme Walking as I climbed the ice hills and skated along the sidewalks. My legs were actually kind of sore when I went to bed last night.

Tonight I'm going swimming, which I'm trying to psyche myself up for. This week I'm having a hard time believing in this process, despite seeing some movement on the scale and in my inches a couple of weeks ago. I find myself thinking about buying the over the counter version of Orlistat, despite the yucky side effects*. Since I've been bobbing around my same weight by about 10 pounds or so for a couple of years, I've been feeling like if I could just get down to a decent weight, I could maintain it, give or take 10 pounds. Easier said than done.

So in the interest of full disclosure, and to have a record for myself so I can look at it and say, "Yep, you only have yourself to blame" I'm going to record my food.

B: 8 oz of Strawberry Stonyfield Farms FF yogurt and 1/6 C. Grape Nuts
L: Campbell's chunky chicken noodle soup and 10 Club crackers. (probably about 400 calories total)
S: Half a can of pineapple chunks in pineapple juice, 135 calories Half a Zone bar pre-workout at 110 calories.
D: Last three ounces of steak from dinner out a couple of nights ago, sweet potato, steamed broccoli.
S: 8 SF wafer cookies and 1 C. skim milk.

I think one of the bonuses of my food tastes, is I actually like the healthy stuff. The other day I opened the fridge, famished, and honestly thought, "Ooo, cottage cheese! Yummy!" Not that I don't like the unhealthy foods, but if I'm in the right mindset I will always go with the healthy choice. In fact after I indulge in unhealthy foods, I crave fruits and vegetables, feeling a need to cleanse my system somehow.

80 laps tonight, 32 in 14:20 (not a stellar time, obviously, but 20 seconds faster than last Tuesday so I'm excited about that).

On the weighing and measuring front, I've lost 2 more inches, which brings the grand total to 2 1/2 inches, but I haven't lost any weight. When does the weight losing actually start?

*I don't really want to write about them, so I'll just say, look them up. Gross.

Eating For All the Wrong Reasons

Last Tuesday night I did my 70 laps and was all psyched to go Wednesday and Thursday too when that big nasty Nor'easter blew into town. The pool closed on Wednesday and then Thursday we found out our building was having some major plumbling problems completely unrelated to the storm and I wound up going down to Providence for the next few days.

Tonight I have plans scheduled for 15 minutes after the pool opens, so I'm going to walk home. Actually, I'm going to walk to Harvard Square so I think tonight's walk will be a little closer to 4 miles than my previous walks. Tomorrow I'll hit the pool.

I'm coming to realize that having a boyfriend and a social life is not conducive to my no sugar plan, so at this point I'm allowing myself some treats. Yes, you can call me a failure. I kind of think I am. But my boyfriend gave me a big heart-shaped box of chocolates for V Day so I'm just supposed to say, No thanks? OK, maybe I am. He ate half of the chocolates though, so that's good.

Anyway, I hope that as long as I keep moving, a little treat now and then won't catch up with me too much. I am not buying any sugary products for myself. I kind of think of myself as a social sugar eater. It's my vice. I don't drink, I don't smoke, a Hershey Kiss with the truffle center isn't going to be the end of me (Speaking of which, have you tried those? I'm a dark chocolate girl usually, but those Truffle Kisses are divine).

Does anyone else think I'm trying too hard to rationalize? I know the way to really do this right is to not even indulge socially, but right now, when I'm feeling kind of down about a lot of things, a little chocolate now and then makes me happy.

You don't have to write me some long comment telling me how eating for emotional reasons is wrong, wrong, wrong. I know. It's just where I'm at right now.

Report for Monday

70 laps last night and I'm going again tonight. My afternoon snack before heading to the pool: an apple and a Zone bar. I really felt like my speed was up last night, although I can't be completely sure since I couldn't really see the tiny little clock hanging on the wall on the other side of the pool. I wonder if the swim team would leave the giant stopwatch out by the pool if I asked nicely.

I'm almost thinking it might be worth it to walk home from work on Monday nights rather than brave the pool. Monday is the good intentions night, when everyone decides that they will start out this week right and get to the pool or the gym or what have you. I speak from experience since I have been part of the good intentions group myself and actually like front loading my week with exercise in case something comes up by the end of the week. The gym was always packed on Mondays too.

The good intentions falter some by Tuesday, and by Thursday I usually get a lane to myself for the entire 45 minutes or so that I'm there. On Mondays I never get one of the lanes that I like and find myself getting annoyed with the 3 girls who came to swim, but actually spend most of their time standing at one end of the pool chatting and taking up one and a half prime lanes.

Progress is Being Made

I swam 70 laps both last night and tonight. I think what I choose to have for an afternoon snack really affects my workout. Yesterday I had some carrots, which didn't fill me up so I had some chicken boullion (not broth) and then ate a small piece of bread right before I went over to the pool. It was a hard workout. I didn't feel coordinated and after 16 laps straight my head would be pounding.

However, today I had some pineapple for my snack and then half a Kashi Go Lean bar (which has soy protein in it) right before I went to the pool. I totally rocked it tonight and swam 32 laps in a row for the first time since the New Year. It's amazing how much food impacts my workout capacity.

Tonight I weighed and measured myself. In this past week, I have only lost 1.2 pounds, however, I've lost .5 inches and 1.5% in body fat! I'm excited about the body fat number since it means the swimming is really starting to tone me up. The .5 inches is cumulative so I actually lost in some places (most notably a whole half an inch off my hips) and gained in a couple of places (which I'm attributing to some muscle starting to bulk up under the fat I haven't lost yet. Yes, I have theories galore). I'm happy that things are actually improving.

What's That About?

A friend of mine was telling me about this new book she just bought about a de-tox diet she's going to do. Basically you only eat lots of fruits and veggies for 7 days, fast for a day, and then do a couple more days of fruits and veggies. No gluten, sugar, caffeine, etc.

I would worry that I would never be full during my detox. A lot of times I bring a ziploc bag of carrots to work and munch on them in the afternoon. While they definitely satiate that whole bored eating thing without being too high in calories, they never touch my hunger. In fact sometimes I feel more hungry after I eat the carrots. Are carrots one of those things where you expend more energy eating them than they actually contain?

Oh Yeah...

Just to keep things accurate, I swam 70 laps last Wednesday. I also did the grand measuring and weighing, which I'm going to do every week to see if there is any progress of any sort.

I swear my jeans are a tad less tight, but that may be wishful thinking on my part. Or wearing the same jeans too many days in a row. Whatever.

So I'm trying to keep everything in perspective, all in moderation and such, and I unexpectedly splurged both Sunday and Monday nights. Well, see, usually I have one splurge day, but I figured having dessert with dinner 2 nights in a row could sort of be compressed into being thought of as one day. Ah, the sweet, sweet tones of rationalization. However, I would just like to point out that Jason, my boyfriend, is constantly eating candy leftovers from the 75% off post-Halloween candy extravaganza and offering me some each time because he forgets I'm not eating the sugar. In fact, one time he literally tried to force part of a Kit-Kat between my tightly closed lips (in a playful, non-abusive boyfriend type manner). And there is currently a bowl of Hershey's Kisses and Hugs in our living room (courtesy of my teeny-tiny roommate). I have abstained from all of that.

So Sunday night I had 3 chocolate chip peanut butter cookies that Jason's sister-in-law made. And last night we went out to dinner with Jason's parents and because of some dinner issues got dessert for free. Appropriately I got the Big Fat Chocolate Cake. Oh, it was divine! Dark and rich, just like I like my chocolate (not to mention my men. Hee!).

Other than those little tidbits, I've been eating pretty well.

I can't go swimming tonight because I have to stay late at work. Well, not late really, just later than the pool is open for lap swimming. However, I plan to walk at least part of the way home from work. We'll see how far I get given that it's obscenely cold and windy in Boston. Charles/MGH? Kendall? Or all the way home?

Swimmy Swim Swim

70 laps last night.

I reached that point where I could have kept going forever. The hard part is actually getting to that point. It means pushing through the sore muscles and the body saying, "No, no, that's quite enough." I was shooting for 60 laps last night, but in the middle of my last set of 12, I felt the endorphins kick in and I knew I could keep going indefinitely. So I wound up doing a last set of 20 because I figured 70 was good enough since it is only my second week back. I had enough energy left in the last lap to ramp it up and sail past the people in the lanes on either side of me and touch the wall hard.

Am I gushing too much about swimming? Sorry, but it's kind of my favorite thing right now.

Positive Physicality

60 laps last night.

In church on Sunday we had a discussion at the beginning of class about what makes us happy. One woman said that her body makes her happy. It works and it's athletic and she can accomplish many things with her body. The phrase the teacher wrote on the board to describe this was "Positive Physicality."

That is my new favorite phrase and I think I need to work on making it a part of who I am. A lot of times I look at myself and I see the rolls and the cellulite. I, like most other women, dress the best I can to hide what I see as my physical flaws.

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with my body. I like my curves and like the attention that I get because of them. However, I would prefer curvy, but on a smaller scale. I am happy that my body works and allows me to swim and walk home from work. But I'm so apt to look at women around me and wish that my legs were that small or my bum could fit into pants like that.

However, when I swim I feel strong, especially afterwards when the endorphins are coursing through my veins. I look at my large legs and I see them toning up as the muscles remember these actions they've been doing since I was six years old. My powerful legs allowed me to compete in butterfly and be the fastest female freestyler in my league at one point. Swimming is the one thing I do really well and I am grateful that I have a body that is still capable of moving through the water. After I swim I am the embodiment of positive physicality.

So my calves don't fit in boots and my lower body will always be a size larger than my upper body. It's okay. I swim.

Maltitol = Evil

Has anyone else experienced the substance that is Maltitol? The majority of sugar free candies out there are sweetened with it. The first few times I tried those candies, I had maybe a little stomach rumble, but nothing major. I must have developed a full-blown allergy to maltitol, though, because after eating two SF Russell Stovers peanut caramel clusters a couple of days ago, my stomach expanded to about 3 times its normal size and made me feel like I wanted to die a little.

It makes me kind of sad since I liked having a choice in the candy aisle even on my no-sugar plan, but alas it is not to be.

Let's hear it for Splenda, though, whose magical sweetness lets me have Jello, pudding and ice cream that doesn't taste too much like artificially-sweetened poo on a regular basis. Mixed fruit Jello, chocolate fudge pudding, and Breyer's Carb Smart (NOT the Sugar Free) in chocolate keep me happy.

Exercising

50 laps again tonight, but it felt more like 100 since I was really feeling those 50 from last night too. My legs are sore and I was feeling a little light-headed. Have to get used to the breathing pattern again. With a day off tomorrow hopefully I'll be primed for 50 or 60 on Saturday.

Swim

Swam 50 laps last night. I was shooting for 40, but I was with a friend and while she was finishing up a set, I did a few more laps and wound up with 44 so when I told her that she told me to just go ahead and do 50. Okey-doke.

My new goggles didn't fog up, which tells me that my old goggles were probably a lot older than I thought. Seeing clearly underwater makes the laps easier. I don't know why, it just does.

I'm going again tonight and then tomorrow it's supposed to be -10 with the wind chill so I don't think I'll be walking around outside with anything approximating wet hair. My next swim attempt will be Saturday afternoon.

Report

Day 15 of no sugar.

Walked home from work today: 3.2 miles.

Testing, Testing

Um, hi there. Remember me?

One of my New Years resolutions is to step up this plan again after letting myself go hog wild over the holidays. As of January 2nd (January 1 was still a holiday after all) no more sugar. Sugar in this case means refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Once I had a couple of days of craving all things sweet, I'm now feeling good about it and also just generally doing pretty well at eating healthy. I've lost a few pounds already.

I know many dieting experts and amateurs will tell you that cutting anything out is bad and just equals forbidden and will make you want to binge. Not so, says I. What makes me binge is when I give myself license to eat sugar. Oh, I'll just have a little candy bar. Just a little miniature one. And then I'll have 4 more because they're so wee. Then I'll have a donut because I've been out shopping all day long and there's a Dunkin Donuts right there and maybe I'll have a Vanilla Coolatta too. Or I'll try the cake and the pie and the cookies at the dinner party. Just a little bit of everything, which, when I really think about it, is in reality a big pile of sugary goo. For me, this sugar restriction works. I get one splurge day a month so when I think how it's a bummer that I can't have something on, say, January 8th, I'll just add it to my list for splurge day, which usually winds up being around the end of the month sometime.

As for exercising, my schedule has been pretty wacky over the last few weeks, but I have managed to at least get out and walk more. For instance, I've now walked home from work a few times (including last night), which clocks in at about 3.2 miles. It feels great, I just really need to get my iPod fixed so I have something to listen to besides traffic and me breathing.

So basically, I'm back on the ball and I feel really good about it. Sometimes I get to a lethargic point where I just don't care anymore, but with the New Year has come my new more positive attitude. I know I can do this, I've done it before. I just have to stick to it and hopefully this time lose more weight than last time and NOT gain it back. I don't need to be perfect. I think my main goal right now is to not have to shop at the Lane Bryant for pants. Once I reach that point, I'll set another goal.

Finally!

After gaining gaining gaining for awhile I think my body has finally gotten the memo that we're losing weight now. That's right, calorie deficit and working out regularly equals losing the weight. Nothing dramatic or anything, just a consistent going down of the scale that's making me happy and feel like this isn't all for nothing. Just the other day I was feeling really discouraged because I have been so meticulous, but after weighing myself last night I had to remind myself that exercise and food changes usually take a couple of weeks to start showing up.

So, Body, keep up the good work. Eat that fat. And if you could concentrate on the bum and leave the boobs alone, I'd really appreciate it.

Scary Ad

I saw an ad on the Metro the other day that I found really disconcerting. I don't even remember what the ad was about, just that the woman in it was freakishly skinny. The ad showed her sitting in a chair with her laptop on her lap, her arms raised over her head in exuberance over something she saw on her laptop.

At first, I couldn't really figure out what it was about the ad that looked wrong to me. Then I realized how much her arms looked like sticks. Basically they were just her arm bones covered with skin. Then I noticed how her whole body only took up about half of a normal-sized chair. She was sitting in the center of the chair, with a quarter of the back showing past one shoulder, and another quarter next to the other shoulder.

Then I noticed the biggest problem: her torso was only a teensy bit wider than her head. This woman's body was basically the same width as her head! Does that strike anyone else as just absolutely wrong?

Is skinnier and skinnier becoming the norm in advertisements, TV and movies, or is it just me? Pretty soon we'll only see walking skeletons in the media. I think we're already seeing some of that.

Knowledge

Sometimes I hate knowing stuff. Sometimes knowing stuff does me no good. Like, for instance, today a little Googling revealed that a standard street corner soft pretzel is 390 calories.

My splurge day list keeps getting longer and longer.

Progress is Being Made

I feel like I’ve been doing pretty well lately. All last week I was very meticulous about recording everything I ate in my ediets nutritional tracker. Then I figured out the calories burned with my exercise, as well as my calorie deficit because I’m not eating 1800-1900 calories a day like I would need to in order to maintain my weight. Most days I had a calorie deficit ranging from 500-1000 calories (I just wasn’t that hungry on the -1000 calories day). As of last Wednesday I got to weigh myself from the 150 marker on the scale instead of the 200. I've been teetering at the 200 for a few weeks now.

This past weekend I moved all my stuff up to Boston. You can read all about the excursion on my other blog. So from Thursday afternoon on I wasn’t really keeping track of my food as meticulously. However, I was also hauling stuff around and stressed out in bad traffic and rain so I figure I probably didn’t do that bad. I did eat cookies on Monday night, but my ediets plan gives me a free day once a week.

Jason’s cat ate one of my Zone Perfect bars that I had brought for breakfast on Monday morning so I had to grab something to eat on my way to an interview. I got a corn muffin at Dunkin Donuts. Yes, I know, not the best choice. However, it was hot and muggy and I spent the afternoon unpacking boxes in no air conditioning, so, you know, it all works out. Right?

Yes, I know, excuses, excuses. However, last week I worked 50 hours in 3 ½ days and still managed to work out 3 times. Plus, I measured myself this morning and my hips have shrunk an inch. Yay! My boobs have also shrunk, but I’m ignoring that measurement.

Feel the Burn

I love this stuff. Today I found a Calories Burned Estimator online. You can enter in your weight and the minutes that you do various exercises in 5 minute increments and they give you calorie burn estimates for each activity. The site also has other calculators that are fun to play with too. Well, fun if you're not in total denial about what your actual body fat and BMI are.

Do you think my desk pedaler counts for anything? Like I said, my muscles are tingley afterwards, but I don't know if that's just due to circulation increase or if there's any aerobic activity going on. Pedaling warms me up and if I'm not freezing already, I may perspire a little. I was thinking maybe the Bicycling - leisure category on the estimator might work. Stationary Bicycle - moderate seems way too vigorous.

And how's this for making a positive step? I have no work to do right now because I ran out of documents to review. I told the attorneys yesterday morning that I would be out soon and one of them emailed me and said she would give me some more. Well, now I'm totally out and no sign of a new folder. So I emailed them all again to remind them, and now I've been here 2 hours and 15 minutes with no work. The work I do is boring, but it's even more boring to be here without anything to do.

But here's the positive part: instead of sitting on my ever-expanding bum, surfing the web, I went for a walk. Downtown DC is so quiet this early on a Saturday morning. Well, comparatively quiet. There's still a little traffic and a few major construction projects jackhammering away, but it's quieter than on a weekday at this time. I walked for 25 minutes, and from prior experience I know my moderately quick walk is about 3 mph. I plugged that into my little calculator and lo and behold I burned 165 calories. Nice.

One caveat with the calculator: I think it overestimates with the elliptical. I did 40 minutes last night on resistance level 6 and the machine said I burned 438 calories. The calculator says 40 minutes on the elliptical burns 688. That's a big difference, but I think I'm going to believe the machine more since it knows how fast I was going and what the incline was and how high I made the resistance.

New Toys

First off, I wound up buying the pedaler. This one, actually:
I love it. If you're stuck at a desk for a long time every day like I am, this is a great little thing to put under your desk. Make sure your desk is kind of high, though, because otherwise your knees might be hitting the bottom. I think once I'm not working here anymore, this will be great to have at home to pedal away while I'm watching TV. And then it can come with me to my next job.

It's very quiet overall, although the second day it started squeaking a little bit. I'm going to get some WD-40 to take care of it, but the squeaking usually stops after I pedal for a few minutes and the pedals lube themselves up. Another noise hazard: if you're wearing jeans and your thighs rub together (ahem), then there will be a constant swooshy sound of fabric rubbing against fabric. Not a problem if you have your own office, or if your officemate wears headphones, like mine does. I would think regular trousers wouldn't make as much noise. I know skirts are silent because I've worn a skirt the last 2 days.

I pedaled for an hour and a half yesterday, broken up into 3 chunks throughout the day. I don't know what it's doing for me aerobically, but I can tell it's getting my circulation going as my muscles are all tingly when I finish and I usually get warmer, which is quite nice since my office is freezing. If nothing else, it gives me a little boost and wakes me up a few times a day. I've already done a half hour today.

My other new toy is an online toy: I joined ediets again. I actually joined in Spring 2005 on Dr. Phil's food plan and really enjoyed having my meals all planned for me already. Plus the recipes were yummy! I got pretty adept at substituting for things I didn't like and wound up losing about 15 pounds (all gained back now. Sigh).

This time I joined Bill Phillips's Eating for Life plan. The days are broken up into 6 mini meals, which seem to work well with my metabolism. I don't get hungry in between meals so much and I think having my metabolism constantly running makes it more efficient. I get a free day once a week, but I'm going to do my best to still eat well for 3 out of 4 of those and stick to my one splurge day a month plan.

Unfortunately because of work and trying to cram in as many hours as I can, I just don't have the time to prepare the meals. We don't have a full kitchen at work, so I'm left to do the best I can for now. For that I am using the ediets Nutrition Tracker where I'm entering in everything I eat to keep track accurately. It's kind of fun. They have an exercise tracker too, so I'm using that as well, including my pedaling. Even though I can't prep the meals right now, I'm printing off the meal plan, recipes, and grocery list for each week so that I'll have a stockpile once I get back to Boston and can cook for real.

Last year it was only $12 a month to join, but I think this time I'm paying $16. However, from what I can tell from perusing the site, I have access to more things with my basic membership than I did last year. Ediets should really hire me for marketing because I have raved about them before.

Darn It!

I discovered Tom Ka soup yesterday as I made my way through the soup list at the local Asian take out spot. They have great hot and sour, mediocre wonton. So I gave it a go. Oh. My. Gosh. Heavenly.

I thought to myself, "There is no way something this delectable can be in any way good for me."

I just googled calories for it and they vary wildly. One site says there are 882 calories a serving, another says 241. Based on the nutrition facts I just read about coconut milk I'm inclined to believe the higher calorie counts. Darn. Guess I'll have to add Tom Ka to my splurge day list. And I was actually thinking about having some with some edamame tonight for dinner.

NRG

Just got back to work from the gym. Since I'm working insanely long hours (15.5 both Monday and Tuesday. Go me!) I've been going to the gym in the middle of the day for the last couple of days. I like going during the day because it gives me a nice break just when I think I'm going to fall over asleep with the afternoon lull.

I come back all fired up, usually with a fruit smoothie. I tend to get migraines sometimes if I work out vigorously and don't eat something right after. I learned last summer that fruit smoothies work great to keep my energy up and stave off the headaches. My dad and my grandpa both have type 2 diabetes and my blood sugar is a little wonky at times so I'll probably get it too (medically I'm like that side of the family - we all also had slight asthma as teenagers and are allergic to penicillin). I would like to put off the diabetes as long as possible. My thin grandpa was about 70 when he got it, whereas my overweight and sedentary dad was about 50. That's good motivation to get down to fighting weight and keep up my exercising.

How do you all keep your energy up when you have to do something boring and/or sedentary after you've gotten your endorphins flowing during a workout? Right now I feel great, but I know in a half hour or so I'm going to start coming down. I still have 4 1/2 hours of work to go and I need to keep that energy flowing.

Peddler

I'm thinking about getting a under the desk pedal exerciser. G, my co-worker, said it sounded gimmicky to her, but I can really see myself using it. Working 10-15 hours per day has me just about ready to jump out of my skin and I think being able to pedal away while I sit here reviewing documents would a) make me feel better about sitting on my bum all day, and b) stave off the crazy nervous energy jiggles.

Has anyone used one of these? What did you think?

Supplements?

What do you all think of supplements like chromium and such for weight loss? Do they do any good? Do they do any harm? I've read a lot of marketing hype, but that's marketing hype.

Whenever I get a Robek's smoothie, I always have them throw in a Trim-bek supplement for good measure, since it's free and all. According to the description, the Trim-bek contains:

Chromium and thermogenic herbs to increase metabolism & burn fat.

What do you think? Just hype?

Thursday 8/24

Breakfast: Stonyfield Farms FF yogurt (Berry Bash) with some Kashi mixed in for crunch.

Snack: 1 Cup of skim milk

Lunch: Hodge podge - salmon, mushroom and snow pea salad, chicken, and Korean sushi

Snack: Robek's Raspberry Romance

Dinner: 1/2 order of angel hair with tomatoes and garlic

Exercise: 30 minutes of weights, 40 minutes on elliptical

Wednesday 8/23

Breakfast: Sliced banana on 1 Cup of Kashi with 1 Cup skim milk

Snack: 90 calories worth of FF Pringles

Lunch: Leftover calamari in tomato and garlic and seafood salad appetizers, 2 rolls. Afterwards I felt a little sick to my stomach, proving that yes, you can have too much calamari.

Snack: Robek's Cranberry Quest smoothie with no sherbet (cranberry juice, blueberries, strawberries and FF frozen yogurt). Then later a 1/2 Cup skim milk*

Dinner: I'm meeting a friend at Chipotle and will be getting a Burrito Bol. I plan to get either steak or barbacoa, a smidge of rice, lettuce, a smidge of cheese, corn salsa, tomato salsa, green chile salsa, and a smidge of guacamole. Sounds good, no?

UPDATE: I wound up getting a salad, which was even better than the Bol because no rice and it was really yummy.


* What's up with the milk all the time, you ask? Well, according to all those dairy commercials, it's good for my tummy pudge. However, I'm not just a pawn in the marketing directors' plans. I really, really like milk. Also, I went to CVS to buy milk on Monday before they got their weekly delivery and all they had left were gallons. So I now have a gallon of mlk in the office fridge that has to be finished by Tuesday, per the expiration date.

Tuesday 8/22

Breakfast: 3/4 Cup low fat cottage cheese, purple grapes from the Fruit Guy

Snack: 1 cup of skim milk

Lunch: Hodge podge from upstairs - today I had chicken breast, a couple of tiny pieces of corned beef, mushroom and snow pea salad, cucumber slices, and 3 pieces of Korean sushi

Snack: 1/4 cup of skim milk, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, and 100 calorie bag of popcorn

Dinner: A whole mix of Italian food. See, I wanted this calamari with garlic and tomatoes appetizer, but you have to order a certain amount for delivery and no one else wanted to order. I wound up with the calamari, a cold seafood salad appetizer, and angel hair with tomatoes and garlic in olive oil. I had a few bites of each dish and 2 of the rolls (not great, but oh well) and put the rest in the fridge. I'm pretty sure I have enough for lunch and dinner tomorrow and by then I'm sure I'll never ant to see calamari again.

Going to the gym in a bit for 30 minutes of weights and 40 minutes of elliptical.

2 Pounds

This morning I stepped on the scale and I am down 2 pounds. This is down from a high that I've reached in the last few weeks that has me curled up in an emotional fetal position and berating myself for my weakness and slovenly behavior. All of that hard work I did last summer, gone! All gone!

Logically I know there are many things to account for the 2 pounds. That time of the month. Water weight. Normal weight fluctuations from day to day.

But it has had the effect of uncurling me from the fetal position. Today I am sugar-free, caffeine-free, and 2 pounds lighter than I was yesterday morning. Today I feel that my back is straighter and I feel a little more peppy. I think part of it is relief to see the scale going down a little, and relief that what I'm doing is working, even if that's not the reason for the weight change. I feel more encouraged that by watching what I'm eating and by exercising - both weights and aerobic now - I can make this happen.

Last summer when I lost about 15 pounds, it always stunned me when I stepped on the scale and I registered a loss. I didn't feel any different really. I felt like I looked pretty good and knew that my jeans were down a size. But it took seeing the actual numerical change, and being told by friends that I looked good and that my arms looked really toned before I could see a difference in the mirror. In the mirror I always look the same - fat.

Monday 8/21

Breakfast: 1 cup of Kashi Go Lean crunch, 3/4 cup skim milk
Snack: 15 FF Pringles
Lunch: 2 sushi rolls and miso soup
Snack: Robek's Pomegranate Passion smoothie
Dinner: 1 Cup of white grape juice, PB&J on whole wheat

Workout: 30 minutes of weights, 35 minutes of elliptical. I was shooting for 40 minutes on the elliptical as usual, but at about 25 minutes, my head starting aching in a weird way right under my right eyebrow. When I slowed down it got a little better, but I didn't want to stop completely, so I pushed through to 35 minutes. I'm attributing it to my lack of caffeine yesterday and hope that tonight will be better.

If I want to, I could work out 5 times this week. I can't go Wednesday or Sunday, but I could go every other day. I think I'll plan for that, and then see what happens.

My Head Is A Little Foggy Right Now

I'm doing a caffeine detox. I am a big Diet Coke with Lime and Diet Dr. Pepper fan. I know it's not good for me, and it's actually been awhile since I've made the effort to get the caffeine out of my system. Yesterday I didn't have any Coke at the house, and I didn't want to go out and get some more, so I decided it would be a good time to just get the caffeine out of me.

Yesterday I was fine, but today I'm hurting. I don't have a migraine, but I do have this kind of blocked up feeling right behind my forehead. Kind of like that pressure when your head is stuffed up and you bend over to pick something up and suddenly it feels like your face is going to fall right off.

I am also really tired and I would love to have a Diet Coke and pep myself up a little, but I can't. I'll feel better tomorrow, I'm sure, but I really want some caffeine right now.

Single-Mindedness

While working a completely mindless and incredibly boring job, like I am right now, my day looks like this in my head:

Breakfast
Snack
Lunch
Snack
Dinner

After I eat breakfast at 7 I immediately start thinking about the 10 o'clock snack, and then lunch, and so on. I'm sure it's just my particular little obssession. If I was an alcoholic with nothing else to think about, maybe I'd be counting the minutes until I could have a drink.

I find that my thinking right now, when I'm in that place mentally where I'm geared up to lose weight, is structured around food in a more positive way. I think about what I can eat and estimate the calories and think about how I could add some fruit or vegetable into the mix and praise myself for eating whole wheat and for not eating sugar.

When I'm not feeling all peppy about the weight loss idea, my thoughts still focus on food during the day, but in a not so positive way. I think about how there's a chocolate peanut butter ice cream cake in the freezer and plan when exactly I will allow myself a decadent piece. If too early in the day then I use up the treat and wish later on that I'd waited. Maybe after dinner... But I will be having a piece, no question.

I think the moral of the story is, I need a more interesting job. But more importantly, I am off the sugar again. It's just way too easy for me to fall into the "Just a little bit here, just a little bit there" mentality where pretty soon I'm having lots of little bits all over the place. I work well under the splurge day regime - no refined sugar/corn syrup except for one day a month. I find after a few months I want less and less sugar. I can only eat a quarter or half a pint of Ben & Jerry's versus the whole thing. This is what I need to do to have any hope of losing weight.

Friday 8/18

I just have to say, my glutes (also known as my bum) are SORE! I love the "Look at me, I used weights" soreness.

Breakfast: 1 cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch, 1 cup of skim milk, 1 tiny nectarine diced and thrown on top of the whole thing. Yum!

Snack: The rest of my green grapes from yesterday (probably 10 grapes) and 20 Fat Free Pringles. How cool is this? 15 FF Pringles are only 70 calories. I started doling myself out 30 and then thought 30 looked like an awful lot of Pringles. So I went back to 20. I know, I know. They're processed potato mess, but they're yummy! I haven't dedicated myself to being all-natural health food girl at this point, I'm just eating healthier.

Lunch: 1/2 a side order of lamb biryani. I could only eat a half order today. Apparently my stomach has decided to cooperate with my weight loss efforts and make me feel full more readily. 2 vegetable samosas.

Snack: 100 calorie bag of popcorn. I really wonder if the 100 calories is assuming ALL the kernels pop. It's a pretty tiny bag and I have a good 30 unpopped kernels generally, but I don't want to cook it anymore before then I'll burn what has popped and the only thing I hate worse than creamed spinach is burnt popcorn. 1 cup of white grape juice.

Dinner: Rest of the Biryani from lunch, half a PB&J on whole wheat.

Going to the gym for 20 minutes of weights and 30 minutes of elliptical. Maybe tonight I'll watch What Not To Wear. Whoever decided to put TV's in the machines is a GENIUS! I wish I could play a DVD, though, and forego the commercials. Ooo, maybe they should put Tivo in the machines too. You could sign up for a machine the day before and have it record something for you, then it will be all ready to go, sans commercials. Probably going a bit too far, yes? Probably making me look like a spoiled little girl, yes?

Thursday 8/17

• Breakfast: 1 cup Kashi Go Lean Crunch with 1/2 cup skim milk; green grapes
• Snack: We had a meeting at 11 and I didn't get a snack beforehand
• Lunch: Small lamb briyani, chicken samosa, vegetable samosa
• Snack: 1/2 cup skim milk and 100 calorie bag of popcorn. Pop Secret has these 100 calorie bags of microwave popcorn. It's not a lot, but enough for a little snackie. What a great idea!
• Dinner: PB&J (with no sugar in either the PB or the J) on whole wheat. So sue me, I'm in a PB&J mood. Small cup of white grape juice.

I'm headed off to the gym now to do 20 minutes of weights and 40 minutes of elliptical. Ellipticalling always goes so much more quickly when I'm laughing my butt off to The Office.

Wednesday 8/16

Breakfast: Cottage cheese and red grapes
Snack: Cup of milk
Lunch: Spicy grilled chicken sandwich with caramelized onions and plaintains (from this place)
Snack: 2 servings of fat free Pringles (only 70 calories a serving! They should hire me for marketing. Yes, I realize it's highly processed, but they're yummy)
Dinner: 1/2 baked ziti entree leftover from Tuesday night dinner out with friends; 1/2 cup milk

20 minutes of weights
40 minutes of elliptical

I probably wrote about this already, but my gym has this great weight machine routine that a trainer helps you out with at first. There are 9 machines all in a row and the trainer gets you set up with the correct alignment. They write down all of your info on a card and keep it on file at the gym so you just grab your card and do your routine, knowing that you're setting up the machines properly for an optimal workout. One of my friends who is too in shape already for the likes of me told me that the routine did nothing for her, but I totally feel it. And I think I'll be feeling it most pointedly in my quads by tomorrow morning. It's the first time I've done weights in ages.

Fruit

Have I told you about the Fruit Guy? A few days a week a man with a table piled high with fruit comes and sets up shop outside of my office building. His prices are decent and the fruit is fresh and yummy all the time. I love coming into work and seeing him. I know I'll have good, fresh fruit for a couple of days at least. Ward off the scurvy and all.

This past weekend I ate crap most of the time. Friday I went to a wedding and had cake of course. Monday my boyfriend and I celebrated our one-year anniversary by going out for Korean food. Then we got low-fat frozen yogurt at this great little restaurant in Cambridge, although I think I negated the whole low-fat aspect when I requested mint chocolate with Oreos to be mixed in. Saturday and Sunday were just kind of losses as we grabbed whatever while we ran errands and such.

However, I'd like to point out that I spent about 6 or 7 hours cleaning Jason's new apartment on Monday. I'm actually still a little sore from that. He just got a large 2-bedroom and it's great, but when he took me there on Saturday I noted that it was filthy. Black gunk on the window panes filthy. So I volunteered to clean it on Monday when he would be at work. My motivations in this were twofold. For one, I can't be there when he moves from Boston to Providence in 2 weeks and I feel bad that I can't help with the move, so this is my way of helping. Two, since he's so busy I have a sneaking suspicion that the move in would have consisted of him just moving in on top of the filth. As someone who will be frequenting that apartment, I couldn't handle that thought because I am my mother's daughter and my mother is a hygiene freak.

So I cleaned. I don't know who the people are who lived there before, although based on the amount of long hair, I'm guessing they were girls, but I don't think they cleaned. Ever. I found Christmas tree needles all over the living room. Plus, I think one of them had a down comforter that exploded at some point because there were little feathers floating throughout all the rooms.

I didn't get to do everything I wanted, like totally wipe out all the kitchen cabinets and take off the grates and hose them down, but I did make it clean. The window panes are white again, as are the bathroom tiles. It just makes me feel more calm to be in there now that it's clean.

Of course, I do realize it will be mucked up again during the move in and consequent living, but I'm trying to encourage Jason to clean more regularly. For instance I bought some Soft Scrub and he was all indignant because he had some in Boston that he had told me to bring down. I pointed out that it didn't really matter since if he cleaned regularly, he would eventually use ALL the Soft Scrub. It's amazing how that works. He looked skeptical.

Sigh. I have to work on the whole "regular cleaning" idea with him.

I also need to work on the healthy eating thing with him because we eat crap when we're together. I KNOW how to eat healthy, it's just easier not to. We've both gained weight since we started dating. I'm hoping that his new place with more space where the kitchen stuff isn't all piled on top of itself will inspire me to cook more when we're together.

Plus, there's a Farmer's Market down the street from him every Saturday morning, I guess until it gets too cold. So we'll be able to get good vegetables and fruit.

Tuesday, 8/8

Breakfast: Fat free vanilla yogurt with low-fat granola (about 300 calories)

Snack: Kashi Go Lean bar (290 calories)

Lunch: Hodge podge - mushroom and snow pea salad, cucumbers, roast turkey breast, Korean sushi. I also got some steamed broccoli and cauliflower, but I didn't eat it because it tasted weird. This is the second time so regrettably I won't get that again. If I had to describe the flavor, I'd have to say it tasted like someone poured some perfume in the steamer water.

Snack: (Not healthy at all) A scoop of chocolate ice cream and a scoop of fat free raspberry sorbet. However, I paid for my gluttony by listening to the two skinny minnies talk about how much ice cream there was and how they were so done after eating half a scoop. This is as I was scraping my little cup to make sure I got all the chocolate. Sigh.

Dinner: Mixed seafood salad appetizer and calamari (fried, yes. But not a lot and actually very light). R, a co-worker, recommended this Italian place that she wanted to order from so I got two little appetizers. Yum!

Monday I also did 35 minutes on the elliptical.
Tuesday I did the elliptical for 1 hour. That's right, I rock.

Monday, August 7

So I took the weekend off because I was moving and basically I ate crap. I bought donuts and bagels for the friends who helped me move on Saturday and wound up eating 2 donuts and a bagel through the course of the day. I also got Taco Bell on Friday night because I was tired and knew I needed to just get home and pack, pack, pack. I hate to admit how much I like the Crunchwrap Supreme, but there it is.

Anyway, now that the move is over for now, I'm back on the wagon. Well, basically.

Breakfast: One blueberry pancake, 2 sausages, and a biscuit. Not so on the wagon, but it's not like I ate a standard IHOP breakfast. I think I had the equivalent of a quarter of an IHOP breakfast.

Snack: 1/2 a cup of milk (when I say half a cup, that's what I mean. I buy an 8 oz carton of skim at the restaurant upstairs and drink 4 ounces as a snackie)

Lunch: Hodge podge - today they had grilled salmon again. Yum! I also got a couple of pieces of their Korean sushi (my Korean friend at work knows what it's called, but I haven't had her spell it for me yet) and a yummy snowpea and mushroom salad

Snack: Nature Valley granola bar, 1/2 cup milk

Dinner: 6-inch Subway roast beef on wheat (not impressed with the roast beef. Will be getting turkey next time) and 6-inch Subway chicken teryaki

Not only that, but my backpack is next to my desk, packed with my gym clothes and water bottle and I am raring to go on the elliptical. I got my new Ryka sneakers the other day so I get to break those in today. I have a friend who works in marketing for Ryka and a couple of years ago I got a free pair of sneakers by answering questions in one of her marketing surveys. Nice, huh? I have loved them, but they are pretty worn out now. My eventual goal is to be skinny and rich enough to afford Ryka apparel because I've seen it in person and it is super-cute. Plus, I like the ethos of a sporting goods company geared solely toward women.

Thursday 8/3

Breakfast: 2 McDonald's fruit and yogurt parfaits minus the blueberries because they have a really strange texture
Snack: Cup of milk and a packet of sugar free hot chocolate
Lunch: Hodge podge. Today I got grilled salmon, steamed broccoli, and some spicy tofu
Dinner: Chopped salad from Corner Bakery. Probably not so great with the bacon and the bleu cheese, but I figure I cancelled those out with the fat-free dressing. That's how it works, right?

Wednesday

Breakfast: Slice of homemade mushroom quiche (made especially for me by a co-worker because she's fabulous and I love mushrooms)

Snack: Half a cup of milk

Lunch: Hodge podge from the diner upstairs. One of my co-workers named it hodge podge and the name stuck. They basically have a HUGE by-the-pound buffet selection that everyone in the neighborhood descends on at about noon. I got a little piece of duck and some shrimp and veggie stir fry and some hunan beef, heavy on the broccoli. I am so happy that work has decided to give us $10 toward lunch every day to use as we please. I can go up to the hodge podge and totally load up on broccoli, which I love, but which weighs an awful lot.

Snack: Um...I think I forgot. I was full from lunch.

Dinner: 6 inch Subway club on wheat with lettuce, pickles, oil and vinegar and salt and pepper; 6 inch chicken teryaki sandwich on wheat with lettuce. So happy about the after 4 PM deal at Subway. I can get a second 6 inch for 99 cents, which means dinner costs $5.04. Nice.

I am a teensy bit proud of myself because a couple of weeks ago in a moment of weakness I bought these decadent white chocolate amaretto wafer cookies at Whole Foods. I've eaten 2 of the 6 and last night was thinking about having one just because it sounded so good. But I wasn't hungry and it was late and I eventually just brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. Good on me, I say.

Reasons Why I Have Saddlebag Thighs

My co-worker, The Skinniest Girl In The World, just came in to chat and was complaining about how she was so overfull yesterday.

"I cut my hamburger into quarters," said TSGITW. "Then I ate one quarter and it was so good I said to myself, 'Well, maybe I'll eat one more quarter,' and it was all downhill from there.

She cut her hamburger into quarters? And then she thought one quarter was enough for a whole meal? And she was overfull from half a hamburger? Do I even live on the same planet as this girl?

Food

I'm going to try this whole accountability thing and see what I get:

Breakfast: Bagel and cream cheese. Full fat cream cheese because they had no low fat/fat free, but I did not use the whole packet.
Snack: Chips on the plane (I just got back from Boston this morning). Not healthy, although there were some pretzels involved. Pretzels can be healthy, right?
Lunch: Hodge podge mix from upstairs, consisting mostly of stri-fried shrimp and broccoli and a couple itty slices of corned beef.
Snack: Half a cup of skim milk. I wasn't really hungry, I just wanted a little something and figured that was relatively safe.
Dinner: 6-inch Subway club on wheat with oil and vinegar, lettuce and pickles, and 6-inch meatball on wheat. They have a whole buy one 6-inch get another for 99 cents after 4 PM. Nice.

Discovered

When I don't eat breakfast and I have something small for lunch it's really esy to justify a big huge mother dinner. Or when I eat no breakfast it's easy to gorge myself at lunch and then justify not eating any or little dinner. This does not for healthy eating make and I can feel it in th snugness of my jeans. Sadness.

This coming week I have to spend every spare second in the evening packing for my move on Saturday. However, next week I'm getting back on the elliptical bandwagon. As easy as it is to say I don't really care, the truth is I DO care. I hate the way I feel when I eat badly and don't work out. I hate knowing that I'm not getting smaller anymore. So I guess I'm back on the wagon.

Shopping

Explain this to me. Same store.

First item: size 12 dress with cardigan. Looks like a dumpy sack on me, thrillingly thinking I need a 10 (which they don't have).

Second item: size 16 skirt. Too tight on my bum to zip up.

Seriously, people, could we get some consistency with the sizing?

Last Week

Thursday: 50 minutes of elliptical
Friday: 45 minutes of elliptical
Saturday: 50 minutes of elliptical

Food all week long: Meh. Nothing earth-shatteringly bad, but nothing really great either. Although I took a positive step and bought some strawberries and peaches at Whole Foods on Saturday. Yum!

Darn You, Wendy's!

FYI, don't go to Wendy's on K between 17th and 18th. They put hair in their food.

Ewwwww!

There it was, right smack dab in the middle of my favorite salad. Where else but Wendy's can you get a yummy salad for less than $5? The Mandarin Chicken Salad is perfection, as far as I am concerned. Very minimalist. None of these cherry tomatoes or onions or peppers gunking up the works. Yes, I know, lots of people like cherry tomatoes and onions and peppers, but I don't. It's like the salad was tailor-made for me. Just lettuce, mandarin oranges, almond slivers and sesame sticks with a yummy Asian-esque dressing.

Not to mention that Wendy's is my favorite fast food place. I love the Frosties and the fries when I'm bad, the salads when I'm good. If they ever brought back the Chicken Caesar Pita I think I'd cry with joy. And now the Wendy's near work is ruined for me. Ruined!

Hmph!

Where Have I Been?

I think the status of this blog kind of reflects the status of my whole weight loss endeavor. As of late the issue of weight loss has garnered nothing more than a big fat, "Meh" from me. I mean, I still look at my overly-rounded body and cellulite and wish it would all just go away, but I'm not feeling all inspired anymore to make it happen.

I worked out 3 times this week and since I'm in Boston for the rest of the week that will be it, unless we go swimming at Walden Pond, which I'm trying to talk Jason into doing, in which case if I swim around a whole bunch maybe I can count that as a smidge of exercise. I worked out 2 times last week because I was out of town until mid-week and then had to work a lot to make up hours. I plan to work out 4 or 5 times next week.

Of couse, considering it's supposed to be something insane like 110 heat-indexed degrees in Boston on Sunday and Jason has no AC, I may just be sweating off all my excess weight this weekend.

I really do like the working out, particularly on the evenings when TBS is showing two episodes of Friends and I completely lose track of how long I've been ellipticalling because it's the one where everyone finds out about Monica and Chandler and Phoebe cracks me up. I lke the endorphins. I like feeling fit and achey and powered-up and exhausted to the core in that great post-workout way.

However, my desire to eat heatlhy is just not there right now. I've been eating sushi and salads for dinner and cutting way back on the carbs (like eating the buld-your-own barbecue chicken sandwich provided by the caterer at work with no bun and only a smidge of barbecue sauce). However, I've also snagged a corner of a brownie here and there just because they look good and I have the munchies and I'm bored bored bored at work. On the days when I'm out and about running errands or being social with friends, I don't even realize when I haven't eaten. All of a sudden my stomach is growling lke crazy and it occurs to me that on a normal day I would have eaten three hours earlier.

Usually during the summer I am all about the fruit and the veggies and the healthy eating because it's all light and cool and lovely for the summer months. I want hearty/fattening foods more during the winter when I'm all wrapped up in bulky sweaters and coats anyway. Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by air conditioning all the time now, both at work and at home, that the desire to keep my food light and fresh isn't there this year.

Or maybe I'm just bored and unmotivated with it all. I know I will never be a size 6. Today at Ann Taylor Loft I bought 2 medium shirts. I bought a size 14 skirt at Old Navy and one at H&M. There is a large part of my brain that is thinking that here I am, almost 30, needing to find some direction in my life career-wise, and I feel like maybe this really is the best I can do with my body because I'm just feeling tired of it all. Maybe my thighs will always be cellulitey and I'll always be trying to hide my stomach roll. I haven't been satisfied with my body since I was 10 years old. So basically I've been beating myself up about how I look for two-thirds of my life.

That's a lot of energy I've devoted to feeling crappy about myself.

Maybe I need to shift my focus. I like working out. I don't like bingeing on bad food. Well, that's kind of a lie. I like it WHILE I'm eating that half a pint of Haagen-Daaz. Afterwards I'm not so thrilled. So maybe for right now, while I'm working my boring job and am never at home to prepare a meal and am moving in two weeks, maybe I need to just go to the gym and eat well and not beat myself up for every little slip-up, imagining each bite of ice cream attaching itself visibly to my hips like in those Nutri Grain bar commercials.

My waist measures less than 35 inches and I have a low resting heart rate (54-60) so I'm not really concerned about my heart-health. I know that I am muscley so if I was just solely flab I'd probably weigh 10-20 pounds less than I do. Maybe not that much, but less anyway.

I need to figure out a way to be healthy and to not be mad at myself for my unhealthy moments. I need to figure out how to be healthy without it feeling like such a chore. I need to figure out a way to avoid the brownie when I'm bored in my office and my little brain decides to focus on the brownie calling to me from the kitchen (or the Frosty calling to me from Wendy's).

New Favorite Thing

My new favorite thing in the world, at 160 calories per little plastic cup, is the McDonald's Fruit and Yogurt Parfait. It's so yummy! And only one dollar!

I was thinking that I could do this so much easier and cheaper myself. Get some Stonyfield Farms yogurt (my favorite now that I can't ever find Alta Dena anywhere, which is sweetened with fruit juice), some low fat granola or Grap Nuts, and some fresh or frozen fruit. Voila! If I ever actually make it to a grocery store, because I work 12-hour days this week and am going out of town this weekend, I'll have to pick up my own mixings for this concoction.

One complaint: the blueberries have kind of a funky texture. The strawberries are great though.

Wise Guy

I scurried over to the nearby Asian restaurant tonight, anticipating the sushi and miso soup I ordered for dinner. I order from this place almost every night because the agency gives us money for dinner, it's right near work, and did I mention they have SUSHI?

When I got back to work I opened my little paper bag to find 2 sets of chopsticks on top of my faux Asian plastic sushi container. Um, are they trying to tell me something? Because, seriously, of all the stuff I've ordered from there, sushi is the least of my worries.

Weight

My weight is the same, but my body fat is down 2.8%. So that's good, right?

The Snacking Monster

Um, hi. Remember me?

I keep meaning to post to this blog but I'm feeling more tired than fired up lately about weight loss. Mostly because I can't seem to stop the snacking. See, I'm working an incredibly boring job for 12-14 hours a day and the urge to snack kicks in fairly often. Usually I can stave it off or pop some gum in my mouth. Sometimes I give in and have a healthy snack - some nuts, wasabi peas, or a piece of fruit. But the truth is I'm sitting on my butt 12-14 hours a day and I just want to nibble.

I have been working out. I got knocked out by a cold last week, but I'm back and better than ever. This week I've ellipticalled for 50 minutes 3 nights in a row already.

But in reality the pounds just aren't dropping off like they should be, or like they were this time last year. It's frustrating. Sedentary days and the urge to snack can't be warded off by a burst of exercise every night it seems. I leave for Vegas tomorrow and - sigh - I haven't made my goal.

What do you do when the snacking urge hits, realizing I don't have the option of getting up from my desk because I have to sit here and review these documents?

Ego Boost

Today a random woman at work told me she noticed that I'm getting more slender. She made a little motion with her hands indicating how my waist is getting smaller. Hurrah!

My weight is up from the low 193.6, but it is that time of the month. I wonder how much my weight fluctuates from day 1 to day 6 of my period, and from day 6 of my period to day 1 eve the following month? I'll have to try to weigh myself every day and take note. My second rationalization is that I know that my body is getting more muscley, which weighs more. I'm trying not to let the scale numbers rule my world and remember that my jeans are looser, my shirts are definitely looser, my tummy is flatter, and my triceps are getting awesome.

One Reason It's Good the AC Went Out At Work

I walked into a sauna this morning. 81 degrees and who knows how much humidity in our lovely basement workspace with minimal ventilation. At about 11 AM I finally gave up on the nicer clothes and changed into my gym clothes because they are infinitely cooler. Well all the heat and the humidity and the sitting like a pretzel in my chair has resulted in my pants getting totally stretched out. I'm having to tie the drawstring super tight to keep them from sliding too far down my hips. They won't slide off completely because, as you'll remember, I have a bootay. But even though I know there are logical reasons for the pants being so baggy, it still makes me feel thinner.

Also, I think my appetite is diminishing a bit. I bought 2 empanadas for dinner tonight just like I did 2 weeks ago, but tonight I could only eat one of them. The beef curry one is now in the fridge. I've noticed over the last few days that I'm just not eating as much in general. Half a sandwich and a small bowl of fruit salad for lunch yesterday and I was stuffed. So that's good. Now it's off to the gym and my favorite elliptical and hopefully something good on TV.

To Each His (or Her) Own

A little bit ago JJ* made the comment that "real men like women with a little meat on their bones." Aw, that's nice, JJ.

Then D, the pissy guy with a critique of everything, whipped around and said "Uh, I disagree with you 100%."

As a curvy, nay, chubby, woman I felt a little put out. His attitude explains why yesterday when I was laughing with my friend M about the bike messengers in Farragut Square being all up in my biznass as I walked by, D whipped around (he tends to whip around and butt into conversations a lot, huh?) and said, "Whatever, they probably just make comments to everyone who walks by." Well, yes, that may be true, but I think his comment today explains why he was so amazed at the idea of ANYone finding ME attractive.

Upon reflection, though, I have to say that I'm not attracted AT ALL to pastey, skinny guys. Three guesses as to who's a pastey, skinny guy?**

I guess we all have our preferences.


* JJ is not to be confused with J, my very gay, very awesome gym buddy.

** Of course, he's not really on my good list anyway based on his general aura of pissiness and his insistence yesterday on reading an anti-Indian joke right in front of A, who is Indian. As soon as the word "Hindu" crossed his lips, I asked him if it was an anti-Indian joke. He said, "Yeah, but it's really funny." I said, "You might want to think before you speak, D." He said, "Can I read it anyway?" I said, "No."

Really? He thinks this is appropriate behavior?