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.