Angel Food (lowfat)

One of the most frustrating experiences on a weight loss journey can be to show up at the gym feeling motivated only to discover that you’ve forgotten your sports bra. I know that some women better than I would’ve sucked it up and worked out anyway. But, my C cups do not need to be subjected to high intensity cardio without a little extra something to keep them in place.

I am proud that even after my 45 min commute back home and despite being hungry for dinner, I popped in a pilates DVD and worked out for 40 minutes. Pilates doesn’t quite replace cardio, but I focused my workout on my abs and arms, and they are feeling it today. Magically, I lost .4 lbs overnight. Woo-hoo!

For those who care, I did remember to pack the sports bra this morning. With any luck, I’ll be out of my photography class early tonight and can get to the gym before it closes.

I really don’t want to record my weigh in amount from yesterday. I decided last night that I’d just email my group of encouragers and beg off the weigh in for the week. This morning, my attitude is different. I am tired of simply “trying to lose weight” and am ready to just do it (with apologies to Nike…). I know that if I don’t report my weight, then I’d be on a slippery slope to gaining again. So, yes, I gained - I was at 157.4 yesterday morning, a .4 gain for the week.

I am giving myself goals this week to kick up my motivation. This “try a little bit” technique for weight loss has  helped me to feel better about myself. However, I’m tired of modest gains. Despite not posting them, I’ve had ultimate goals in my mind all along. I wanted to be 135 by Christmas a month ago, but I don’t think such a quick weight loss is possible right now. I’m finally feeling really motivated and know I need to be more mature and stop making excuses if I want to reach my goals.  

So, my two utterly acheivable goals for the week are:

Goal 1: Weight loss of 1.5 lbs by 10/29 (so 155.9 lb next Monday, can’t weigh in on Sun because I’ll be flying back from a friend’s wedding) 

Goal 2: Cardio workouts 3 x this week 

Ultimate Goal: 143 by New Year’s Day 1/1/08

So, why the newfound motivation? Last week was terrible, mostly because I let my insecurities sabotage my progress. I felt bad about being overweight, afraid that I was a disappointment to my BF or my family. I resorted to old patterns of overeating to feel better. Of course, the old patterns never work - I only felt worse about myself and slightly sick from eating so much. I felt unloved and unlovable. I threw myself several pity parties.

My wonderful BF, blessedly, confronted me about how crazy I was being. He helped me to see that I’m not some sort of a failure. I’ve pretty much been kicking butt for the past few years. I lost a ton of weight, still maintaining a 53 lb loss. I’m dating a wonderful man who loves me deeply. I’ve built up several new friendships and grown closer to my family. I’m finishing my BA, probably with a 4.0 average. I even feel pretty gosh darn attractive. Despite all these achievements, however, lies this truth: even if I still weighed 210 lbs and wasn’t working toward goals, that wouldn’t make me a terrible, unlovable person.

But, there are times when I get nasty and beat myself up over the weight gain that happened last year. I deserve to be happy right now, in my size 10s. Gaining weight hasn’t hurt my relationship, but my attitude about myself has. So, I’ve gained back some weight, and I’m disappointed. When I’m honest with myself, I know why I’ve gained weight back, and it isn’t my thyroid! I’ve been eating too much. They barely know my name at the gym anymore. But, I can’t get caught up in throttling myself because I’ve slipped back into old patterns. Instead, I just have to create new ones. I want to be an active, outdoorsy sort of gal. So, I just need to make time to be active and outdoorsy. I’m tired of my BMI teetering between the normal and overweight level, and I want to wear my cute smaller clothes. So, I need to make sure I eat better, stop making excuses, and work hard to acheive my weight loss goals.

Part of my insecurities stem from my feeling like an imposter. When I was at 135 and could shimmy into a size 6, I felt like a fake. I had an overweight coworker who told me everyday how I had gotten too skinny. It’s as if she was really saying, “you’re the chubby one in the office, you shouldn’t be that small.” I felt like I was playing dress up, knowing that one day I’d have to give the clothes back. But the truth is, the me at 135 was just as authentic as the 157 lb me and the 210 lb me. In fact, the smaller me was probably more genuine because I realized what it took to be healthy, and I was doing it. I wasn’t anorexic; I wasn’t starving myself; and I wasn’t making excuses for staying heavy.

Adding fuel to my new motivated fire, my BF needed to know my weight to take me and a friend flying this weekend. Sensing my embarrassment, he didn’t make me say my weight out loud. He let me plug in the number and figure the calculation. I don’t want to be embarrassed by my weight anymore. I don’t want my weight to get in the way of what I want to do in life.

As it did in the weeks after Shenandoah, my motivation has been building these past few weeks. I have felt it happening, and I’m at the decision point: I can take the motivation and run with it, or I can live my same life. Truly, I’m fine now, but I know that I can be better. I can be healthier. Why wouldn’t I do whatever is possible in order to be healthy? Gains and bad weeks are going to happen, that’s almost certain. But how I handle them can be different. I can be motivated and mature. And, I can move ahead.

At lunchtime today I wasn’t hungry for food. Everything I thought of eating sounded unappetizing to me. I still feel all hollow and worn out inside from arguing with my boyfriend last night. He’s coming for a visit this weekend, and I have no idea how it will go. I’ve not been able to see him for more than a month, so I will be genuinely glad. But, I still am sad and hurt because he never seemed to get what was upsetting me. He keeps talking about being married, but I’m hurt that it is taking so long to get engaged. I feel like until I have a ring on my finger that my parents and coworkers will just think I’m crazy to be expecting to be a Mrs. next year.

So, I’m blogging now becaue my way of “dealing” with feeling crappy at lunch today was to grab fast food at Chick-fil-a. I wasn’t even hungry. I just wanted something that might be comforting. But, my chicken wrap and waffle fries didn’t make anything better. Why in the world would such food be a comfort? If anything, they’ve made my day more difficult now. The food I ate wasn’t healthy and certainly won’t keep me feeling energized for very long. But, I’m pretty much stuck not eating anything the rest of the day to make up for my lunchtime excesses.

I’m blogging to remind myself that there are other ways of dealing with the bad days in life besides eating. Also, I’m blogging to remind myself that my healthier life and dieting will continue on in spite of this minor failing. Writing about this setback is reminding me that with another blog entry comes another chance at redemption. Here’s to a healthy rest of the day.

Yesterday, I was suffering a major case of the “I can’t believe I’m not engaged yet” blues. I wanted nothing more than to go home and have a pity party, but instead I went to work out. I did a cardio intervals work out on the elliptical, alternating 3 minutes of a steady but quick pace with 1 minute of a vigorous pace. Despite not being a regular exerciser, I can already tell that my intervals are getting easier to do.

I wish that I can say that I had a workout high that lasted all evening, but it didn’t. I am proud of myself, though, for not succumbing to tv and snacks as I wanted to do. Instead, I ate just 3 triscuits while cooking a dinner of cranberry beans. I turned on the TV, but mostly as background noise while I accomplished some much needed house cleaning. I was rewarded with a slight drop in the scales this morning. Thank God something feels like its going right.

It feels absolutely blissful not to be counting WW points. I am steadily losing pounds (well, okay, ounces) this week and no longer feeling like everything I eat will have a negative affect on my diet. On my other blog (see the blogroll), I wrote today about a West Indian Vegetable Curry that I’ve been eating all week. It is wonderfully tasty, healthy, and low in points for those who care. I do care about how the food I’m eating will impact my overall health. More important to me, however, is that what I eat tastes good. The stuff I was starting to eat while still on the WW flex plan was as interesting as cardboard, tasteless but low in points. So, I’m enjoying my meals again. Enjoyment, in turn, leads not to overeating but to true satisfaction with my diet.

So, with my diet in a happy place, I’m going to try to get my exercise routine into a happy place, too. It has been in a decidedly unhappy place lately - actually, in a non existent place. My week’s photography assignment is finally finished and under control, meaning no more getting home after midnight this week, so I’ll be heading to the gym after work. It will feel good to jolt the muscles out of their rusty confinement. They’ve been aching after I’ve spent 11 hours over the past two nights standing in the photography lab. It is as my muscles are practically shouting to me, ” we need to be stronger, make us stronger.” So, I’m gonna try.

This morning I weighed 157.0 - minus .4 lbs for the week! I’m really excited about this loss because normally I’ve gained weight after a Saturday. I’m weighing in on Sundays now instead of Mondays.  I’ve identified I’ve been using Sunday as a starvation day to make up for overeating on Friday and Saturday. It is much more sane simply not to go crazy eating on Saturdays. Moving my weigh in to Sunday motivated me not to eat too much yesterday. 

And, it would have been so easy to eat too much yesterday. I had another fantastic weekend (there’ve been many lately). My brother and I hung out again and visited the Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market. They have a great little deli/restaurant. I tried a few vegetarian dishes - a cauliflower curry, ratatouille, and a spinach/artichoke bake - and treated myself to a samosa. Later in the day, we randomly stumbled upon old friends of mine - people I love dearly and see far too little of. They live in Virginia and DC but were in Atlanta for a wedding. Seeing them was amazing and surreal, dream-like, really. I kept myself to one drink at the Brick Store while we caught up with each other. On my way back down South from Atlanta, I stopped in and had dinner with other friends. Despite trying to watch portions lately, I ate two bowls of chicken chili along with them.  I love chili, and was impressed by how warming yet healthy Natalie’s was. I made mental note of her recipe while watching her cook and can’t wait to try making it myself.

Some news on the weight loss front is, I’ve not renewed my Weight Watchers membership. In 2004, I lost 16 lbs on WW while learning what portion sizes really should look like. Off the plan, I was able to lose an additional 59 lbs in 2005. I feel like I’m at a time when I can go off the plan again and do really well. This time around, I have an even greater support system of friends with a group of four former coworkers of mine. Our crazy emails encourage me more than WW has lately. Here’s hoping for weight loss without assigning a point value to every iota of food!

I’m entering this week with a lot more energy and optimism than I’ve felt in a long while. Really, Saturday was a remarkable gift of  a day. I’m still smiling from the joy of it all!

My weight today is 157.4 - a -.2 lb weight loss for the week. Only a fifth of a pound lost, but I’m moving in the right direction.

 I continued my trend of blowing my diet on Friday and Saturday. My weight was 155 on Thursday, but even the promise of such a healthy weight loss didn’t keep me from eating too much this past weekend. My brother had come for a visit, and he needed some TLC after a really rough week. “TLC” often means good food, of course. We had our usual chili - it was great, but already I’m getting tired of it. The real kicker on Friday night was pear crisp with ice cream. My stomach was already full, but I didn’t pass all that butter and cream. I would have felt much better if I had.  Saturday, my brother came to my house for dinner. One of my roommates had kindly bought steaks to share. We also baked potatoes and made mac n cheese. Why the double carbs? The steaks were NY strip and so, so good. At least I packed away half of mine in the fridge before digging in.

Despite the stark reality of my weekend overindulgence, I actually feel pretty good today about my dieting. My progress is slower than I’d like, but it’s progress all the same. Planning my meals is really helping during the week, so I just need to be smart and plan my weekends, too. I also sat down last night and sketched out a reasonable workout schedule. I’ve been telling myself that I’m too busy to exercise with work and school. But, I’ve realized that if I have hours to spend playing Wii Golf and watching the Food Network, then I definitely have time to work out.

So - specific weekly goals:   155.9 (1.5 lb weight loss) by 10/15 and cardio 3 times this week.

My weight this morning was 157.6 - a respectable 1.4 lb weight loss for the week. I probably actually lost more weight, but I ate a late dinner. I’ve definitely noticed the correlation between eating late and a higher morning weight (it makes perfect sense).

Last week was a great one for me, not just because I lost weight. The scale is the meaurement, but it isn’t what’s important. Instead, I found fulfillment in things besides food. Probably everyone of us blogging on this site has a “food issue” - whether it be comfort, entertainment, etc. that they confuse with food. I think mine is fulfillment. I often am unfulfilled at work, so I snack all day. Ditto for weekends where I am bored or not quite contented. 

 Last week/weekend, I tried to fill my time and  space with something besides food. I kicked butt at my job. Not only was I more productive, but - surprise! - I wasn’t as hungry. This weekend was a little harder, but I did well. Hanging out with my brother, running around taking pictures, exploring a farmer’s market, reminded me that there is so much good out there that I don’t need to fill up on junk. It’s kind of a larger metaphor, isn’t it? Fill up on the good stuff, and you’ll have less room for the bad.

Goals for this week: lost 1.5-2 lbs, get exercising again