Busy weekend, busy Monday.  Not great with food, or exercise.  I feel totally miserable and fatter than ever, but I’m excited to see Lynn on Thursday.  I’m only in Detroit for five days, but I’m sure we’ll really pack in the fun- Lynn and I are great and travelling/ enjoying visits, having been to Europe and Brazil and all over the US together.  I’ve known her since I was five and I can’t wait to see her.  I just wish I was going to blow her socks off with my new skinniness.  Sadly, it’s not happening.  What is wrong with me?  Why can’t I keep it together?  I need to work out tomorrow to keep myself off of suicide watch, I swear.  Oof.

I’m sicker than ever today and so is Noah, in fact we took a day off, something that’s going to have resounding implications for the rest of the week until next thursday, when I leave for Detroit.  I’m hoping this nasty day is this horrible colds last hurrah and then it will be on it’s merry way.  I slept almost all day, couldn’t read or focus on a movie or do anything, really, that was productive.  I only got out of bed once during the day to wolf down a bowl of tomato soup and then tonight, to cook myself a bizarrely elaborate dinner.  I’m going to get to bed early, hope I’ll be ship-shape enough tomorrow a.m. for a hardcore workout.

Breakfast: no

Lunch: tomato soup with 2 servings reduced fat wheat thins (440 calories)

Dinner: Roast chicken (today was the last day before it supposedly goes bad, is why I made such a crazy meal) with capers, onions, garlic, rosemary and potatoes.  Green salad with carrots, tomato, pine nuts, feta.  Steamed asparagus with lemon juice and salt.

Exercise: nooooooo. . . not even a dog walk.

1500 miles in 2010: 524

Song of the Day: Feel The Machine, by the Chalets

Daily awesome: How Twitter is Ruining Celebrities.

I was tired and grumpy all the livelong day today, biting my fingernails to shreds, blowing through a box of tissues, biting Noah’s head off for no reason at all.  I hate being sick because, occasionally, it will bring up my normally-deeply-concealed bitchiness.  Today we basically were troubleshooting all day, which is a hassle and feels like a wasted day, though I know it’s necessary.

I’m trying to get revved up for spring and summer; trying on all my hot weather clothes, obsessively shaving and moisturizing my legs, and trying to feel a deep sense of motivation for diet and exercise.  This time of year is depressing: it’s been the same, the past three years.  I always think I will have lost a bunch of weight, but really, by the beginning of April, everything since December has basically been a waste.  Again, I’ve blown it for the first third of the year.  I’ve lost maybe five pounds, which is just a drop in a very flabby bucket when you need to lose 80.  This first quarter, I’ve been very good about exercise in general and also flagrantly irresponsible with my food choices.  My friend Evelyn and her girlfriend are doing Weight Watchers and they’ve each lost over 20 pounds in five weeks.  This is so tempting to me and I would totally do it if a.) I was more of a joiner by nature and b.) I had the cash to spare.  I’m pretty well-versed, when it comes to nutritional information, I just need to make better choices and, you know, eat less.  As the summer approaches, I’m going to try not to focus on bathing suit season, so much as things I want to do.

Things Like:

-throw a fabulous garden party.

-do the wine tour bike ride to walla walla (about 30 miles and my sister and I are planning on doing it together)

-swim in the ocean more than once

-make some new friends

-meet nice boys

-smoke a salmon every sunday with the charcoal smoker I made

Anyway, I have lots of ideas for what to do with myself once the warm weather arrives, but right now this greyness outside is just dragging on and on.  It’s probably a blessing in disguise, as we have SO MUCH FREAKING WORK TO DO ALL THE TIME.  Launching a small business is so tricky- the two of us are doing work that could easily occupy a staff of twenty and I keep thinking it will abate at some point, but it hasn’t, not really since we began this project.

It’s weird; less than five years ago, a big part of my identity was being this perennially wasted party girl, compulsively excellent waitress and apathetic college drop out.  I didn’t think I could ever dig myself out of that hole.  Now, a big part of my identity is the positive structure I’ve built into my life with Noah and the business.  I’ve basically created a job for myself where I write for a living, even if it’s not quite as creative as I’d like it to be, it certainly does combine the full range of my skill set.  I finally finished college and am now considering grad school.  There have been so many positive changes in my life and I hope with more sustained effort, my struggle with my weight will be another negative building block of my personal identity that I see in the rearview mirror.  I realized that with all the other stuff down (college, drinking problem, smoking, bad boyfriends, out of control relationship with my mother, etc.), my weight is the biggest source of sorrow and strife in my life.  I don’t know why I won’t let myself just TAKE CARE OF IT, for once and for all or why it feels so hard.  I think it’s because I’ve had an emotionally complicated relationship with food my whole life (those other demons that plagued me, not so much).  In fact, being an alternately stoic or jokey person on the outside and also being a compulsively busy lady, I often don’t realize just how down I’ve been until I think about what I’ve been eating.   A week of bad eating is like a signal on my emotional barometer.  I want to take the opportunity to really kill it, the rest of this year, and tackle the remaining toxic areas of my life: my chronic fatness and my constant money struggles.

Breakfast: apple (80 calories), 1 bowl tomato soup (200 calories)

Lunch: leftover chinese food (about 600 calories)

Snacks: 14 tortilla chips with pico de gallo (150 calories), 1 container teriyaki nori (80 calories)

Dinner: salad with 4 oz roast chicken, 1 ounce feta, 1 tomato, lettuce, spinach, 15 pine nuts, carrots, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinaigrette (400)

Total Calories: 1510

Exercise: 30 day shred level 2, 1 hour stationary bike (16 miles)

1500 miles in 2010: 524

Song of the Day: Italian Leather Sofa, by Cake

Daily awesome: Kittens Inspired By Kittens!!

I have a terrible, terrible cold.  There are shredded mangled tissues all over the house from me and Noah constantly honking into them all day, since both of us caught this bit of nastiness from Chance.  Me, of course, slightly more indirectly.

Not a great day with food, but meh, I’m sick and I exercised.

Breakfast: no, but hot tea with lemon like a mofo

Lunch: tomato soup with 32 oyster crackers (320 calories)

Dinner: Chinese food, 1 potsticker, 1 mu shu pork wrap, 2 slices fried egg plant with sweet sauce (Est. 1200 calories)

Calorie total: 1520

Exercise:  1 hour stationary bike (14.5 miles, my ass was really dragging today), 30 day shred level 2, 1 mile with the dogs

1500 miles in 2010: 507.5

Song of the Day: Somebody To Love, Glee Version (it’s coming back tomorrow, squeeeee!)

Daily awesome: Tina Fey’s awesome takedown of Bombshell McGee (’they’re called Bombshell McGee’s’).  That whole mess is such a bummer, isn’t it?  A normal affair scandal is a big enough drag, but they’ve really kicked things up a notch with the whole white supremacy angle, making it all just that much more distasteful and disgusting and sordid.  Also, as discussed at length in this article on Jezebel, why didn’t Sandra Bullock immediately release a statement, right after the picture of HER HUSBAND DRESSED AS A NAZI surfaced?  What the hell is up with that?

Well, since I’m still slacking on blogging and I figured out the problem with the admin end of the blog, i thought I would post some Mexico pictures instead of detailing the absolute trash I ate today.  Actually, it wasn’t so bad, but it was A LOT.  But, you know, vegetables.  Feh, I’m back on the horse tomorrow.

Me and Noah looking out at the ocean

the view from our beach house

me and Chance being silly

me and Noah doing the same

Noah reading some trashy book or another while sunbathing

more beach

Totally amazing vacation, you guys.  See you tomorrow.

Well, I’ve been something of a conundrum to myself lately: I have exercised extremely vigorously this week, never missing a planned workout, sometimes twice a day.  I’d feel totally great about this, except that I’ve been eating absolute garbage.  I don’t mean just having portion control issues or anything like that; no, I’ve been terminating every piece of junk food, fattening desert, plate of white pasta, take-out box of greasy lo-mein or carne asada burrito from the taco bus that crosses my path.  No binging, just every time I sit down to a meal, it’s like I’ve forgotten I’m even trying to shed the extra 80 pounds I’m lugging around and I just plow right through whatever’s in front of me.  I just feel incredibly HUNGRY this week and preoccupied with food; I’ve been wanting to cook and cook and cook, pastries and curries and elaborate pasta dishes.  Thank god my sister and Sandro are coming this weekend, so I can have an excuse to have a dinner party.  Hopefully that will break me of my bizarre food obsession this week.

I think it’s because every other area of my life is incredibly stressful right now, so I’m using the working out and the cooking and the eating of everything under the sun for stress management.  I’m probably going to have to put my cat down, sadly and I don’t even know how to go about dealing with that; he’s my little buddy, I’ve had him for over ten years.  Also, I’ve work five ten hour days in a row and no end in sight and also, no money, AND no one’s even hiring me to be a waitress on my (very few) off hours.  I could not feel more despairing right now about all things financial; I don’t know how people sort these things out because I just can’t seem to.  Also, I’m totally lonely, I really want a boyfriend, but I don’t even really have my eye on anyone (though the seafood guy at Whole foods is quite cute); I haven’t had any passion in my life in that arena in a very long time.  Either bland boyfriends or no boyfriend at all and I’m sick of it.  I’m almost 30; why can’t I get my life in order?

Ugh, anyhow, I just can’t bear to even write down everything I ate today (barbeque pork, big salad, spinach and artichoke dip with pita bread, mangoes, tomato soup, chocolate) and I will also not detail my killer work out.  But I do have an extremely solid 64 miles on the stationary bike and on foot to add to my total, so, you know, blammo!

I’m going to get back on track with this blog this weekend or, at the latest, Monday, but for now, I just can’t get my shit together.

1500 miles in 2010: 492

Well, I’m back.  We had an incredible time on our vacation, I am fabulously tan, but now it’s back to work.  I’m feeling very rejuvenated by the time away from home, but I returned to a lot of stress: my cat,  Harry, who is 14, got very sick and nearly died while I was gone.  So now, we’re caring for him, feeding him with a syringe and all this other gross stuff.  It’s pretty terrible.  Also, Noah and I are really talking about him and Chance moving to San Francisco in October, which is very upsetting.  Unfortunately, that’s where all Noah’s resources are, there’s really no incentive for him to move to Seattle with me and for me, a move to California at this juncture would be a lateral one, which I don’t want to make.  We’re going to try and figure it out.  I’m feeling really insecure and adrift in general right now; don’t know what’s going on with work, or grad school, I’m lonely but no prospects on the horizon, I’m broke, I don’t know what the hell I’m even doing anymore.  I need to get myself together, but I don’t know exactly how to proceed.  I did, however, eat pretty well on the vacation and got lots and lots of exercise, what with swimming all day, every day, walking, etc.  I’m ready to be home, though, and continue moving forward toward my weight loss goals.  I’m so fucking sick of being fat and it feels like there’s no end in sight.  Will resume regular posting tomorrow.

Daily awesome: Well, I was going to post pictures of my fabulous vacation, but I still can’t make the goddamn browser uploader work.  Seriously, if anyone knows how to do this, I will be deeply in your debt if you tell me how.