Steely Resolve

Making My List and Checking Things Off:

1. Track Every Bite Every Day.  I have tracked every bite including the four beers I drank on Saturday night.  Whew!  Thems some points!  And at least WW plans for that.  It is a plan for life.  
2. Avoid My Trigger Foods.  I have not so much as sniffed the bag of chocolate chips in my pantry.  I know they are there.  They don't own me.
3. Work Out.  I went to the gym tonight since boot camp was canceled on account of candy.  How diabolical to deprive us Chunks of our workout when it is candy celebration night!  I might not forgive them.  It was actually pretty good since it gave me a chance to change up my routine and try something new.  I went to a body works class and it was very challenging.  Yay!  I felt the burn and it was the first time in five days that I worked out.  It felt so good by the end of class to be all hurting and pumped full of endorphins!
4. Celebrate Non-Scale Victories Every Day.  I made it through Monday without killing the remainder of my points.  I have 7 WP and 5 AP lurking out there.  I am trying not to touch them.  The splurge I had on Saturday should be enough to last me through Friday.  PS. So what if it's Halloween?  That does not give me any more reason to eat poorly than any other day.  Trust me, I can come up with plenty of excuses on any given day.
5. Plan Ahead.  I made my salads and pre-tracked.  I am on point!
6. Get in my Good Health Guidelines Daily.  Flax seed oil shots!  Water chaser. Vitamins and loads of water fruits and veggies.  I am sooooo healthy!

I am one day closer to destroying the inner Saboteur.

Confessing a Bender

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I have been on a self sabotaging spree.  I have had a lot of stress come to a head in the last week and I am handling it very poorly. 

This past summer my husband and I decided it was time to start a family.  I went off my birth control with lots of reservations.  The first was I am so old.  Every one will have their opinion of how old is too old but I am 38.  I imagine what life will be like having a teenager in my fifties.  It doesn’t really sound that good.  The other major reservation is finances.  Since my husband and I both worked in the new home business when we met, we had certain expectations of what our future held for us financially.  Well everyone in that industry is finding themselves in reduced circumstances.  And I ask myself, can we afford to have a child?  No.  Everyone tells me that no one can afford it, yet it works out anyway.  I guess so, but I won’t believe it until I see it.  In the meantime it really stresses me out. 

I didn’t realize that my birth control was a mood stabilizer.  I feel like I am a hormonal bipolar wreck without it.  I really feel like a crazy person.  I was able to handle it pretty well until I began to have my period every two freaking weeks.  And then I Googled that shit and got my freak-out on and now I have a Dr’s appointment on Friday.  So who knows what I am in for with this but none of the options I found during my research were any good at all.  Oh and the every two weeks hormones exacerbate the crazy.  My poor husband.   

Finances.  We don’t live extravagantly, we don’t make enough.  At least we aren’t behind on the mortgage or any other bills.  But it is constantly a worry.

I am so old that some folks I went to High School with decided it was time for our 20 year reunion.  Why in the world does that bother me?  I’ll tell you why, because of the freaky way it makes you time travel back into your old high school self that was insecure and ok, insecure covers it.  I have not worried about what to wear in the way that I did Friday night to go to a casual bar meet up with my former peers since I saw them on a daily basis.  It is insane anxiety and completely unnecessary, but it happened.  So I knew there was no reason for me to go to the actual reunion dinner thing.  If I haven’t spoken to these people in 20 years, the forced small talk would KILL me.  I hung out with two of the people I really still like on Friday and I figured that few of the people I would really want to talk to would be there.  And since I am friends with them on Facebook, we could plan to get together if we really want to without the crazy stress of a freaking reunion.

In addition to wrestling with whether or not to attend the reunion were several events on Saturday my husband wanted us to attend that were overlapping.  We normally ride the couch on Saturdays and do housework so this was unusual.  I was also working on Saturday to cover someone’s vacation, and I hate working on Saturdays and my husband hates it too and he gets cranky about it.  And I get cranky about it.

I also had to work Sunday at an event for work.  I had a booth at a fundraiser.  It was fun, but sometimes crowds can stress me out.  So, as you can guess, after my weekly weigh in Saturday morning, I had a nutty weekend with my eating.  I was very very bad.  No tracking and no gym time.  I continued in this negative space through Monday night because I didn’t have any laundry done.  I usually do my laundry on Saturday so that I have clothes for the week.  I only have enough clothes for a week of work.  I told you we don’t live extravagantly and I am losing weight so I am down to the smallest clothes I own from my previous yoyo down.  So I sat on the couch and ate myself into oblivion while I did my laundry.  No bootcamp.  Yesterday-the same.

So when the shit hits the fan, so does my plan.  I ate myself sick last night.  I literally woke up at 2 am thinking I was going to puke my guts out and I think it is because of the massive quantity of chocolate chips I ate last night (in addition to the night before).  Before I changed my gluttonous ways I could eat.  I mean, loads of rich foods without consequences to my internal plumbing.  The richer, the better, the more of it I ate.  I obviously can’t handle that anymore.  And really, I shouldn’t attempt it in the first place.  It is just such a knee-jerk reaction for me.  But I haven’t been off plan in this way in so long that I am surprised to find that I can’t go that far off the map without it making me feel bad instead of good.  I am not talking about feeling bad as in guilty for doing something I know I shouldn’t, but literally bad sick.  I feel like crap and I felt like crap all weekend every time I ate junk and drank alcohol.

I made my salad this morning and I ate my usual breakfast and I am going back to boot camp tonight.  Maybe the damage can be undone.  Maybe it can’t, but for the first time there has been very little reward to outweigh the bender I am on.  The overeating and the bad choices in food didn’t come with that usual high.  It just sucked.

I can get off this crazy train right now.  I choose me.  I choose health.  Maybe by tomorrow this hangover feeling will be gone.

No Honey, You Didn't Ruin My Life

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My husband read my first post.  He said "Oh, I ruined your life?", I replied "What?????", he counters "We only ate ice cream and everybody else encouraged you to get measured and stuff.  I told you to measure and get off that scale!"  Yes Honey, you have encouraged me and you are the best thing that's happened to me!  I have actually made the most progress since he's been trying to watch what he eats as well.  It has really helped me that there aren't any Oreos lurking around the house.  I can smell them from a mile away you know!?  But that brings me to a concept that is the most difficult to tackle when you are trying to lose weight and you are a control freak: you can't control other people!  If you are the only person for miles who is trying to keep a safe distance from donuts, you are likely to encounter said donuts and especially on the day that you most need to avoid them.  What do you do?

You make a choice.

You know the one.  The hard one.

And then you keep making that choice.

And sometimes you eat that frikkin donut and half a bag of chocolate chips and then some chips just 'cause the chocolate aftertaste needs a little salty chaser.

If option number two happens, what do you do?  You wipe that chocolate off your mouth, calculate your points and track them.  Then you give yourself a minute to say mean things to yourself and then you forgive yourself and move on.  Sometimes this happens often and sometimes this rarely happens.  The longer you go making the hard choice and staying on plan and eating right, the easier that choice becomes.  But you still can't control what other people do, or what kinds of temptations they bring into your house.  Your struggle is not with them.  It's with yourself.

It's with YOURSELF.  You can't say it's someone else's fault when it's your own hand bringing that bad choice to your mouth.

Preparing to Succeed with Salads

Preparing my lunches for the week is definitely the best way for me to kill my inner Saboteur.  I know that in order to eat the breakfasts and dinners that I want to eat, I have to have a very low point lunch.  That means salad.  When I first started having salads for lunch I would make them one by one every morning.  I hated it.  I dreaded it.  Well, then my work schedule changed and I had to be at work at 8am instead of 10 am on quite a few days of the week.  And every day would be different and my schedule could possibly change at the last minute.  That meant I could get a call at 7am requesting I come in at 8 that morning.  So that didn't work out for my salad a couple of times.  So I had to begin preparing them on Sunday nights.  And you know what?  I only had to dread making salad once a week.  And I had a foolproof way to stay on plan all week.

I never have gotten tired of the salads.  I have had to buy about six different kinds of dressing and I always vary the ingredients.  Sometimes my salads are a few points higher or lower but that helps me keep my dinners varied as well.  I also pre-track the night before so I know what snacks and dinner will be and what my total points are.  That way I can make an informed choice when I am confronted by someone bringing in donuts or offering me sweets.  I usually say no, but sometimes the donut bringer has brought The One.  The Nemesis of all  of my resolve:The Chocolate Glazed with Shredded Coconut.

This week I tried a new fruit for my salad: Pomegranate

I never peeled one before although I have eaten the seeds in some fancy salads.

I also recently bought these amazing Glad containers which come with a little salad dressing holder.  It's very easy to measure out the dressing since the container holds only 1.5 oz.  I like only 1oz of dressing because the points are very low, so I measure mine on a scale.

 I used to worry that the salad wouldn't last but I buy the artisan lettuces that are a little more expensive but they last longer and stay crisper after being cut than the others.  Hearts of Romaine work well too.

Favorite Salad toppers to mix it up:

Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie packs
1oz goat cheese
1oz fresh Mozzarella Pearls
1oz Walnuts or Nuts of any type
Dried Cranberries or Cherries
2-4 oz leftover chicken, shrimp, steak

Zero Point Ingredients of Choice:
Broccoli Slaw
Purple Cabbage
Sugar Snap Peas
Shredded Carrots
Cucumbers
Radishes
Cherry or Grape Tomatoes (decreases the slime factor over sliced tomatoes)

I try to keep the toppers in the 2-4 points range.  I mean Points Plus.  That's the new Weight Watchers program that I ADORE!

Freakin Frakkin Kickball!

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So just mere hours after the last post, I found myself at a new boot camp location where the trainer had the brilliant idea that we should play kickball.  I was pissed.  You know how I feel about kickball.  In four months of boot camp, the phrase kickball has never passed anyone's lips.  But, since I had just posted about how much I loooooove boot camp and how it challenges me but sometimes could be harder, (blah blah blah you're a self absorbed windbag)  I knew.  THIS was the ultimate challenge.  I looked on enviously at my fellow boot campers who called bullshit and left.  I hung out with the other whiners who weren't going to let the childhood trauma of kickball bring us down.  I wasn't alone.  I wasn't the only one who'd ever been picked last.  And, we played, and grumbled under our breath.  It sucked.  I found myself running in place just to keep my heart rate up.  I couldn't catch a one ball headed in my direction.  They flew through my arms as if I had designed by arms to be a basketball goal.  Humiliations galore.   Oh, by the way, I did not redeem myself and I  am still pissed about ever hearing the words kickball.

Boot Camp Baby!

I am in love with Boot Camp.  It has been such a memorable experience for me filled with lots of firsts. 

1. I am not athletic and now I am beginning to feel an athletic coordination and drive.  It is crazy how hard I can push myself.  One evening I did 400 squats-in-a- row!  I never would have guessed I had that in me
2. I always give up on physical exercise when I inevitably gain weight in the first month of any new program.  I gained weight and stayed there pretty much in the last four months.  I have hated it and it has been one of the biggest struggles of my life.  I have had to dig deep to not get discouraged and give up.  And I did think a lot about giving up.  Somewhere around August/September I began to notice changes in my body.  My arms started to get cut and my sides were shrinking in.  My WW leader told me to measure and I did and I saw results.  I have never been so happy to see a tape measure in my life.  I can’t wait until the end of this month to measure again.
3. I go to boot camp even if I am feeling under the weather.  It has been years since I suffered more than one cold in a 12 month period and I never get the flu.  But I do have annoying allergies that can turn into a cold if I am not vigilant.  More than once I thought I had a cold coming on and I went to boot camp anyway.  I never take my temperature when I am feeling sick, because for some reason, knowing I have a temperature is enough to stop me in my tracks and really feel sick and just go to bed and give up and let the cold take over.  I think working out even if it feels borderline has prevented me from actually getting sick.  It has now been over a year since my last cold.
4. I am fighting that voice in my head that says “I can’t”.  It is not winning.  It is very quiet now and is cowering in the corner.  I think, “Who knows?  Maybe I can do this?  Let’s find out.”  400 squats later, I find that I, in fact, CAN do this!
5. Sometimes I wish boot camp was harder for me, or lasted longer.  WHAT????  Crazeballs!  Yup.  I said it!  We have had several rotations in my boot camp instructors lately, which I love because they are all different and challenge me in different ways.  But, since my instructor was all braggy about how many squats I did, every substitute instructor seems to think they must break me, aaand they put me in the advanced level of reps/time/distance.  And guess what?  I CAN do the ADVANCED BOOT CAMP PROGRAM!  Zoiks!  And sometimes, when I visit other locations of my particular boot camp and they don’t know me I try to hide out in the intermediate group until I realize they are mainly focusing on the beginner stuff and the reps/time/distance aren’t high enough for me.  That’s when I feel it isn’t hard enough.  SO I must remember to challenge myself when I am under the radar.  I have got to keep experiencing the pain of sore muscles or it does nothing for me.  (What a weirdo)
6. I look forward to getting a tough workout four days a week.  It has always been a struggle to get the motivation to go work out.  But boot camp is priceless.  It’s like deep discount personal training.  Couch potato girl is pretty much gone. It is unreal how much time I used to spend watching TV and doing nothing else.  It really is like a drug and it can ruin your health.
7. I have become competitive.  ???  In a physical way?  Yes!  I have always despised participating in any sort of team sport.  I remember hating kickball in elementary.  Every one was sooooo tied up in whether or not they won and my whole team would shun me (even though they knew they would hate me ‘cause I was picked last anyway) when I didn’t perform to their standards.  I was all like, “Hey, what’s the big deal?  It’s just kickball.”  But man, no one would talk to me for hours after a game at recess if we lost.  Now I get really pissy if someone is lunging across the parking lot faster than me!  It makes me push myself harder.

Who is this new person?  I have no idea.  She bears very little resemblance to me.  I am excited to get to know her and I hope that I don’t sabotage her.  I am craving ice cream after all and we all know that’s a slippery slope with a bad ending.  

First Post

I have been reading several weight loss blogs for over a year now.  I am constantly needing inspiration and motivation.  The blogs I have found definitely do that.  And I am so grateful to them and their inspiring stories. 

I have tried to lose excess weight countless times.  I know that for weight loss blogs out there, I am going to look like a fraud.  But I am short.  A bite sized chunk, if you will.  I am 5ft tall and at my heaviest I was 167lbs.  I have the pictures to prove it.  167 is a lot when you are vertically challenged.  I lost about 20lbs in 2006-2007.  I was so determined that I drank no alcohol and ate no sweets.  I was very disciplined and went to the gym after work every day and worked with a trainer about 4 times a month.  Oh, yeah and this was before the economy collapsed.  So no worries at all for me! 

What happened you asked?  In May of 2007 I met the man who would become my husband.  On our first date we went to Cold Stone Creamery and discovered we have absolutely the same trigger food-Ice Cream.  Before I became so determined to lose weight, I ate ice cream every freaking day.  Every Day like it was an essential nutrient I would die without.  And my date took me to eat Ice Cream.  I should have put the brakes on, but I was giddy and he was cute and I kind of missed my old pal ice cream.  And so we began to date exclusively and eat ice cream together.  And the market tanked and I couldn’t afford a trainer and I got laid off and stressed out and ate more ice cream and chocolate and anything I wanted.  I still went to the gym to punish myself for being a bad girl, but I did not monitor what I ate.  I joined Weight Watchers in March of 2009 and gave up in May after experiencing an awful plateau.  I gave up caring at all that fall much to the annoyance of my mother who thought I should try to lose weight for my upcoming wedding.  So by the time we got married in February of 2010 I was back up somewhere between 157 and 160 lbs.  I don’t know exactly because I would rarely get on the scale and admit what I was doing to myself.  I was wearing my fat pants again and I hated my wedding pictures because I thought I looked so awful.

A year later I had had enough.  I joined Weight Watchers again after I heard that they re-vamped their plan.  I loved it because it is more in tune with how I prefer to eat.  I hated that all the processed foods were so low in points and fresh stuff was higher in the old plan.  I was so happy to eat salad for free!  I was 153 on the day I joined and I knew I had already lost four pounds before I started WW.  I was off and running!

As I examined my own history in my weight loss attempts, I realized that I am my own worst enemy and my greatest Saboteur.  I need to find a way to kill that part of me, to stop that part of me that wants me to fail again and again.  I think I need to begin my own blog now to keep myself honest and on track.  To explore the why and how of my own self defeating patterns.    I need to be my own inspiration and motivation too. 

I hit a plateau this summer and the meetings helped me to be determined to not give up.   That was the first major conflict with myself.  As I watched that scale fluctuate between 2 lbs over four months I wanted to quit over and over again.  I had to steel myself and say, “No.  Don’t Give Up.  Never Give up.  You can do this.”   That self sabotaging voice was so loud in my head.  The words it spoke to me were so mean.  But I was not going to let me fail.  I had to keep going.  And I did.  The never give up version of me is currently in the driver’s seat.

I am still on a plateau, but I am measuring inches now.  I have lost 6.25 inches in the last month, I am wearing clothes I couldn’t wear before and I am happy about that, but I am still addicted to that scale and fighting with myself over it daily.  This is where my story and Blog begins…