Angel Food (lowfat)

My motivation to eat a sane amount of food over the weekend lasted about twelve hours. Friday night, I had one bowl of chili at my parents house. When I got home, my roommate and his family had made juicy ribeyes and baked potatoes. I love ribeyes. I was able to resist their beckoning sheen of fat, solacing myself with four glasses of wine (8 pts, I know) and some fried okra.  Saturday I was even weaker in the face of adversity (re: unhealthy food). Where did it all come from - the brunch, the mac n cheese, the grilled burgers, the chocolate chip cookies? I ate about twice what I should have.

It was no surprise that on Monday that I weighed: 159.0. A - .2 weight loss for the week, which barely counts.

This morning, after a mere 1 day back to counting points, I am already at 157.6. (At that rate, I’ll weigh 20 lbs by 2008!) Joking aside, I am cautiously optimistic about this week. Counting points seems to get easier every day. My big goals for the week are to exercie more and to be 157.0 by October 1. I was a dismal exerciser last week, only doing one day of cardio, one day of weights, and one day of yoga. I don’t want to be skinny and flabby like before. I want to be skinny and strong. Blogging and an email support system is really, really helping to keep my encouraged and moving toward those size 8 jeans again!

After the chili debacle of earlier this week, I have settled quite nicely in my WW routine. After several abandoned attempts to lose weight over the past 6 months, I am finally remembering the commitment and the (let’s be honest here) minor amounts of suffering I went through to lose 75 lbs. This is tough! I have to say “no” a lot. When I allow a treat, I have to compensate for it somewhere else. For instance, yesterday I drank a full 20 oz coke. That meant dinner had to be kashi waffles and edamame. (I need to go grocery shopping.) I am about 6 points ahead of where I should be this week, but (1) that’ s not too shabby and (2) I can still make it up this weekend.

So, let’s see how well I can do these next few days. It’s one thing to stick to points during the work week. It’s quite another to tackle a weekend during football season when your roommate has family in town. I’m skipping the church picnic on Sunday, so I won’t be contending with fatty grilled meat products. Most importantly, I need to be honest about dieting, as I was a few  years ago. I’ve been embarrassed to admit it this year because it was like admitting a failure. But, to hide from people that I need to eat healthy is ridiculous. It’s like a person smoking to be cool, even when he has lung cancer. It’s simply unhealthy. I can’t wait to report back on Monday to tell how the weekend went. And, here’s to looking forward to weigh in for once!

There’s a chill in the air here. Ok, not a “chill” exactly but at least a freshness of fall. When I was a kid, our family always looked forward to fall because it meant that mom would start making her chili again. Yesterday, I was doing well sticking to my WW points. I squeezed in a cardio and attempted to go to yoga, only our flaky yogi didn’t show up for the 2nd time this month. That’s where things went wrong. Not only did I miss the yoga practice, but this poor woman in my yoga class told me a sad story about how her husband had suddenly left her last month. The pain and hurt this woman was clearly feeling unnerved me.

Perhaps it was this unnerving that prompted me to call my parents. Staring in the face of an engagement soon (hopefully) with my boyfriend, I needed the reassurance of a happy, long marriage. My parents have been growing old together for 34 years.

Just as she did when I was younger, my mom had celebrated autumn by making her famous chili. Mmmm. So comforting. I semi-resolved that I’d only eat one bowl. I ate one bowl and thought, “I’ll just have one half bowl more.” Of course, I wound up eating a whole second bowl. It’s Tuesday and already my weekly flex points aren’t looking too good!

The moral? Well, I usually haven’t considered myself a comfort eater (although something must have been driving me all those years to eat more than my share). Last night was a big wake up call for me. Also, semi-resolutions don’t work. After dinner I was over-full and annoyed with how I ate. I fully (not semi) resolved not to let the evening be a total wash and did a yoga DVD before going to sleep. The yoga helped to ground me and made me feel strong again.

This week’s resolution: to keep counting points and to eat only one serving of a dish per meal.

Does the world really need another weight loss blog? No, but I do. Angel Food, the other blog I maintain, is keeping me focused on trying to cook really good food. It’s not quite the place I need to go to keep accountable for losing weight. Here’s hoping that Angel Food (lowfat) will. So, here goes.

My weight this morning was 159. There, I’ve said it. That’s not terrible for a 5′6 1/2″ gal. It’s not the 210 I weighed three years ago, but it is also not the 135 lbs I was 18 months ago. After working my butt off to lose 75 lbs, I started dating a terrific guy. In my happiness I forgot to diet. He didn’t care if I ate two plates of pasta for dinner, so I didn’t either. And I gained weight again.

After maintaining my weight for about 6 months, I’m finally to the point mentally that I was at 3 years ago - let’s just call my state of mind “Post Shenandoah.” I’m determined to journey down the scale again. I’ll count points for at least the next 30 days (until the WW membership runs out). I’ll record my weights. I’ll go a little hungry. And I’ll write.