The Journey from Buddah to Aphrodite

So, yesterday was cinco de mayo.  The fifth of may.  I worked 10 hours on a Saturday to make up for time off from being sick during the week.  While I was working (date and initial every note you put in) I realized it was 5-5-12.  Exactly 7 years ago I graduated college.  This is not where I saw myself then.  Oh sure, the house and the husband, but work and my personal appearance…not so much.  I never expected to hit 264.  And honestly even when I was there I did not think I looked fat.  But looking at pictures of it now, I can see a difference.  I have always hated taking photos of myself, but I have been trying to record my trip, for posterity, but mostly just to keep myself motivated.  I can look at pictures of me from 6 months ago and now and see a difference that I cannot see looking into a mirror.

Also, the scale yesterday hit 225.  I have not weighed that since 2008 when I got married.  It was another kind of shock.  Seriously, I never paid much attention to the scale, I have only ever tried dieting a couple of times in my 32 years on this planet and although I have always been overweight, for the most part I took it as par for the course.  The sky is blue, grass is green, Gail is fat.  Even when I was lifting weights and working out daily, I was not thin.  I am not now, and will never be thin, I have very broad shoulders and will always have a big chest and hips.  It is just the way my genetics work, and I am totally cool with that.

But I do want to take off a bit more of the surplus Gail, to be healthy.  I love my husband and I want to be with him for as long as possible.  Maybe that is greedy of me.  But I can handle that.  Now I am sitting here, getting ready to play Dragon Age on my computer, he is making low carb lemon breakfast cookies.  with eggs, oatmeal, protein powder, and lemon.  I will be glad when I get off this diet, just so I can make some real food.  I did have real food for the last two weeks being sick, and actually lost 3 pounds.  So I know I can maintain that way.  Once again, I just have to work at it.  Signing off for now.

Gail

Well the program is going fine, except that I have a sinus infection and I can’t taste anything.  I am down 23 pounds now since I started MRC (40 total since November), which a pound every 3 days is not bad, but according to their “lose 3-5 pounds a week” spiel, I am not doing great.  Life has gotten in the way, first I pulled several muscles in my back trying to work out, and now the sinus infection and a cold at the same time…I have been off plan alot.  I ate canned soup, when I could eat.  My face hurt so much I could not close my jaws.  but it seems to have broken my plateau and I lost another 3.5 pounds this week, which knocked me over the 20 pound mark.

Otherwise I have been drinking a lot of the Syntrax Nectar, instead of their protein drinks.  It comes in a large recyclable plastic tub, which I prefer to their tiny single serving packets which cannot be recycled.  Plus they strawberry mouse flavor makes me think of strawberry milk, which I loved as a kid.  it works great as an after workout treat, because I feel like I am getting something extra tasty, and the proteins from milk do help build muscles better than others.  Also, their chocolate truffle and vanilla bean torte are pretty good.  I am not overly fond of the other fruit flavors, but these all taste a lot of variations on milk, which I miss.

I have been playing Dragon Age again, and gotten overly involved in that, so I spent the morning coughing sneezing, and cleaning my house…hello OCD, where have you been for the last few months, I did not miss you at all.  But I feel like I am losing control of my life, and so I clean, or change things (rearrange furniture, paint a room, get a tattoo, or dye my hair which is currently pink).  Less than 80 pounds now to go, it may be less than 70, I told them I wanted to get down to 160, but I don’t want to lose so much fat that my boobs shrink away, so we will see how that works.  They told me the minimum I should be is 154, so we will see how I feel at 170 or so.

Ok, I really need to update more often, we will see how I feel this weekend.  Maybe all this horrible medicine will kick the sinus trouble.  Fingers Crossed.  I weigh in on the wii fit on Saturday.

Well, I lost 2 more pounds last night at weigh in and got to sign the 10 pound board, and got a little bracelet saying I lost 10 pounds.  It was cool.

Then I went home and tried out the new workout video “Belldance, Fitness for Beginners - Slim Down”, and it kicked my ass so hard.  I have used the Bellydance, Fitness for Beginners series before with not nearly this much ass kickery (ok, except the Fat Burning DVD, that one powned me).  But I made it through the 15 minute bonus stretching video and most of the Slim Down video, so I am counting that as my 30 minutes. 

I have lost a total of almost 30 pounds since November, 10 in the last 3 and a half weeks.  I still have 80 more or so to go… so this could be a long half a year.  I know I can do it if I just stick with it.  Here is hoping I can stick with it through Easter, Fourth of July, Lots of birthday parties at work (I know of 4 just in July, including my own), and maybe Halloween.  Come on willpower, don’t fail me now.

Tonight was date night, my husband and I had tickets to the Walton Arts Center to see “TAO: Art of the Drum” which left us a couple hours to get home, medicate the cat, figure out dinner, and get to the show.  We came home, he dosed Odin with Phenobarb and after a short discussion we ordered a pizza.  A Cheeseburger pizza from Papa Murphy’s, they are awesome.  It was not bad, though it made my stomach feel a little wonky afterwards.  But after 12 days of strict diet, I just needed a little something different.  So we cut the pizza in half, each ate a couple slices and put the rest in the fridge for in a couple of weeks when we need a break again.  Then we went to the show, which was awesome.  And on the way home we stopped for some Soft Serve Frozen Yogurt.

Eric was worried that I would feel guilty over tossing the diet aside, but in truth it just feels so good to relax and now worry for once that i can’t feel guilty about it.  I may change my tune at Friday’s weigh in, but for now I am good.

Now off to shower and then stretch out with a good book before bed.  Goodnight all, and here is hoping for a nice dreamless sleep.

if I plan on doing these more than once a week.

Tonight we made spaghetti squash.  Eric is working on trying to get some storyboards done as a test for a job, so cooking was up to me.  I pulled out his leftover tomato sauce/pizza sauce he made on Thursday and decided to try my hand and this odd gourd.  It was kind of a pain to cut in half, and I told him he heard a scream and a loud thunk to come running because I had most likely chopped off fingers.  I don’t use knives much because I am kind of accident prone.  But after much paranoia and a few hack and stabs I did get the thing in half (mostly) and got it oiled up and started baking.  400 degrees for about 35 minutes.

Took out my awesomely heavy meat tenderizer/flattener and smashed some chicken breasts into thin little bits, tossed those on the (generic) George Foreman grill and off we go.  Honestly measuring and weighing the cooked food took longer than preparing everything.  But the end result was satisfactory.  Eric will need to work a little on his sauce though, he added too much truvia to counteract the heavy tomato flavor so it was a little overly sweet, but not bad.

I have no idea how I am going to keep eating this much meat, it is kind of making my stomach unhappy.  But for now Eric is making tiny bowls of apples baked with cinnamon and truvia as desert.  I saw a recipe for meringues this morning that I can use as a breakfast and I so want to try it.   I just have to wait till I get back to the store and get some fake egg whites.  It seems like such a waste to me to use the white and not the yoke, but I have a mad crave on for sugar that must be satiated, and really getting to eat a cookie for breakfast would be awesome, even if I did have to make them the night before.

It was kind of sad today, Eric and I had to go to Sam’s to get a few things (we now buy canned tuna in bulk, this is a sad day) including more chicken breasts and paper towels.  And we had to walk past the bakery to get to the meat section.  Of course everything smelled like pies and cookies and I resolutely kept walking, drooling profusely the entire time.  But we made it in, made it out, and did not attack any of the free sample people for their baked goods so it was a fine trip.  As soon as we walk outside I turn to Eric and I say, “Oh god, I smell Pie”  he looks at me and says, “Are you sure, I know it is cinnamony, but do you think it’s pie?”  “Yes!”, I blurted out, “Pumpkin pie, I can smell it.”   “Well, I am once again glad that I don’t have your sense of smell.  But once we get through this I am so gonna have a really big slice of pie.”  He gave me a one arm hug to bolster my resolution (and because both of our other arms were carrying stuff) and off we came home to fix up a couple of fried eggs on toast and some broccoli to get a veggie in.  Because the idea of having to rummage through the fridge could have been my undoing.  I know I still have a big block of chocolate in there for dipping that I got at Christmas, and I would hate to decimate it when I feel like I am doing so well.

Honestly we have only been on this a couple of weeks and you can already see more definition in his hips and leg muscles.  One of the great things about me is I have always gained weight evenly, so even at 265, I wore and 18 pants and did not look as heavy as many of the lighter women I know.  Unfortunately it also means that even though I have lost 20 pounds now I can’t tell.  I still wear an 18, they have not gotten any looser.  Ok, well when I wear them all week (I only have the one pair and am determined not to buy any more pants until I go down a size) they get looser, then I was them and they are back to being snug.  But this will work.  Maybe by the end of March I can go get another pair of pants…or at least justify buying a belt.  Fingers Crossed.

Well, we went to nutrition class last night, and there was the big sell.  by which I mean they spend a lot of time telling you about all the stuff you should buy.  But we also got more information on what I can and can’t have.   Afterwards there was no time to work out.  But when I hopped on the Wii fit this morning it told me I lost 3.3 pounds this last week.  So GO ME!  Eric lost 5.5, so he sucks, since he is not even officially on the diet.  But he eats the same things I do and being a man he just generally will lose faster.  Which kind of sucks because he needs to lose so much less.

Anyway, I am eating more now than I was on the conditioning, and since I have never been a huge eater anyway it is a little frustrating.  Get up, try to take all my vitamins I was taking before (1 a day, fish oil, CoQ10, Omneprizole, and Birth control pill) and now the 6 extra they have me taking, their “Big 3″ and a trace minerals…which I will take now and probably not use again once the bottle is up.    I tried to talk to my counselor about the nightmares that the supplements have been giving me, but she just told me to take it earlier so I could be sure to keep the full effect going.  I am trying her suggestion tonight, but if I have the freaky “wake my husband up with my screaming” dreams again then forget it.  If I go too long without good sleep my willpower crashes and no one needs that.

Got back into the bellydancing DVDs today.  Neena and Veena, they have some awesome stuff.  I am sure that they could be better done, but I defiantly feel like I get a workout by the time it is over.  Otherwise spent the day cleaning and trying to figure out meals…there is so much MEAT.  I know, it is a high protein diet, but ugh.  I like meat, but just not that much of it.  trying to choke down that and the veggies and starch/fruit is a bit difficult.  I boiled some water and made my HNS with cranberry green tea nice and warm for after dinner.  It was more enjoyable that way.

I better go, need to finish cleaning up the kitchen before I can shower and relax before bed.  I will update soon.  Maybe I will have better progress halfway through the week…and no nightmares, fingers crossed.