I’ve been calorie counting now for the last four days, and it’s been a lot simpler than I thought it would be. I ordered a scale from amazon to see what the correct portion of food looks like. I think it’s because SB was pretty intense in terms of planning food, so this is just taking it a step further. Also, I am only 4 days in. Talk to me in about a month or two and we’ll see how I feel about counting calories! And even though I am counting calories, I am still following a SB based plan - so no white rice, white potatoes, refined sugar, refined flour, etc. etc.

I did have a major “bad” day Superbowl Sunday. I don’t want to rehash what I ate but it was BAD. Not to mention what I drank. I will say that there are no more “holidays” until my birthday (well Easter, but I’m usually pretty well behaved there) so I should not have any excuses for any major derailments. I have not stepped on the scale - and I will not step on the scale until next weekend. I’ll use that as my “weight” to see if I’m making progress, and if the calorie counting is working.

When I was younger, my parents stressed how much I needed to get and education (I can hear my mom now…when I was 15…keep your mind on them books and off them boys!) - and as I got older, focus on my career and the “rest will fall into place”.

So here it is, I am “kicking 35 in the throat” and I have no prospects. No kids, no boyfriend, no semblance of a boyfriend, nothing. I don’t even have a guy I could call a booty partner! (Not that that’s what I am looking for). So the catch 22 - I have educated and careered myself right out of a man, because now most of the guys want a “project”/”fixer upper” - or the good guys are already married.

All my life, I’ve set goals for myself, and for the most part, I’ve achieved the goals that I’ve set - which the exception of getting below 200 pounds, but that one’s a work in progress.

So the one goal that I’ve set - find a good man - I have not been able to achieve, and it’s driving me crazy. Literally.

I could probably compete with Dr. Phil, Oprah, and Cosmo with the library of books I have on dating and relationships. I have asked many of my friends to give me any feedback (no matter how brutal) on my dating behaviors.

I’m still coming up short.

The list of things that are “wrong” with me as my friends have given it to me:

• Too tall - nothing I can do about this one
• Intimidating (but I’m the nicest person I know! )
• Guys feel “insecure” with me because of my accomplishments
• Guys like to feel needed and they don’t feel needed with me because I don’t “need” anything (but I need love and companionship!)
• Not feminine enough - well I’m feminine when it counts. Yes, I have a BIG personality - I have a big laugh, kind of loud from time to time, sarcastic, corny, extroverted, and outspoken. Whoever I end up with is just going to have to love that part of me, because that is a part of me I’ve worked to develop and I ain’t changing it. (backstory here - I used to be really shy and introverted, because I had extremely low self esteem. Over the years I’ve learned how to “fake it till I make it” - and I still have self esteem issues.) - I will always be “boisterous and outspoken”, though.

• Cut down on the alcohol - alcohol is my biggest downfall. I am really trying to cut it out, especially on the weekends, because that’s where I get into trouble.
• Start Meatless Mondays - so far, this has been a HIT! The recipe for lentil tacos was my first “meatless monday”  (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tasty-lentil-tacos/detail.aspx) and I must say I didn’t miss the meat at all. Not sure what next week’s Meatless Monday will be - right now I’m thinking some sort of veggie pasta.
• Run another race (this will be number 3!)
• Try some new classes at the gym. I love Spin, but I think it’s time to change it up a bit. Tonight, I went to an abs/weights/step aerobic class, and I enjoyed it! I think I’m going to keep doing that one on Tuesdays.
• Get below 240 pounds (first)
• Maybe start Weight Watchers
• Get below 200 pounds
• Non weight related - pay off some credit cards
• Non weight related - keep my apartment cleaner
• Take a vacation! I hardly went anywhere last year except to Philadelphia. This year, I’m going to try and take two or three trips, even if it’s just down to Houston for a weekend.

- Made my initial goal of less than 40 minutes

- Did not make my stretch goal

- Beat last year’s 10K miles per minute average (10k I averaged a 13.38 minute mile. The 5k I averaged a 12.48 minute mile)

All in all, I’m happy with my results. I wished I could have made the 35 minute mark, but I didn’t have very long to train for this race. There was a hill at the beginning which was a KILLER. I am proud to say that I made it all the way up the hill without walking! If this course had have been mostly flat - like another part of the same trail I had been training on - I may have also come a little closer to that 35 minute goal.

I am proud of myself today. Race number two has been added to the belt notches

Here’s a pic, more will be posted once I get them.

What I am about to say is not PC, but I’m having a moment.

So I’m at the gym, and I see these two skinny girls, “playing” at the gym (you know, the people pretending to work out, but they’re usually too busy talking or texting instead?), and I start thinking about how life is SO NOT FAIR. I would just like to see some results…and in the meantime, I see people who barely try, and are skinny. Or people who eat shit all day, and in the meantime, I gain weight if I even smell it. Or my favorite - people who look at me and assume that I sit around and eat twinkies all day…but then they see me in the gym or on the tracked and are *shocked* (insert gasp here) that the big girl has endurance too!

*SCREAMS*

Ok, rant over.

So tomorrow, I have the 5k that I’ve been training for. I’m confident that I will meet my goal (to complete it in less than 35 minutes).

Wish me luck.

So, here it is, a year and a few months since I’ve been in Dallas, and I am on job number three. Yikes. The last job I had turned out to be not so great. There were a few major red flags - namely, a mandatory week off without pay and my boss quitting - which let me know it was time to leave. So here I am, with a new job. I started this one in September, and I must admit, it is great. My boss seems to be a really nice, and fair guy. The work life balance is wonderful (unlike the last gig) - it is very rare to work more than a 40 hour work week. I work from home 100%, which means I can wake up at 7:50 and start working in my PJ’s. All in all, life is good

No news to report on the dating front, except for all the idiots I dated this year have turned out to be major duds.

My lineup of this year has consisted of-

• The junk food king (didn’t believe in physical exercise, ate excessive amounts of junk, did not like to be outside, and played video games all day. I like a guy to be active. NOT COMPATIBLE)
• The 43 year old loser  - a very handsome guy, whom I’m sure has coasted through life on his looks. He barely had a job, no car, no place to live, no checking account - I could go on and on. Not to mention despite him being in shape, his “equipment” did not work. And lastly, very selfish…and I really do believe he may have been homeless for real. WTF? Big bucket of fail all around.
• Inconsiderate selfish jackasses numero uno and dos. I like to call them both Laurel and Hardy, Heckle and Jeckle, or GI Joe and Big Bird. GI Joe asked me to crash at my place for a week when he returned from Iraq. He knew I liked him (have known him for years, so if I open up my house to you that has to mean I like you on some kind of level, right????) but did not understand why I was mad at him when he kissed another girl in my face. Numero dos seems to think that he is blameless in any of the problems that happen to him, and had no issue pointing out any of my flaws.

Upheaval - I left my old job as a consultant. I decided that being a consultant wasn’t really conducive to living a healthy lifestyle. It was VERY HARD to maintain healthy eating habits and exercise while on the road. Not to mention the fact that coworkers wanted to go out and drink frequently while on the road. Aside from the fact that consulting just wasn’t for me and a few other factors — I decided to look for another job. So here I am, at another job, that doesn’t require nearly as much travel.

Because I got the new job, my commute was 52 miles a day in Dallas traffic. I hate commuting with a passion. I feel like it’s one of the biggest nonsensical time wasters ever. Once I got the job, I immediately set out to find a new place to live closer to the job. So ergo upheaval number two for the year - moving. I moved last week to a spot in Downtown Dallas which is really nice - I love it.

I am definitely a creature of habit, so all this upheaval has thrown my diet and exercise into a tizzy. I don’t know if I’ve gained any weight (I haven’t stepped on the scale since January), but my clothes are not feeling tight. I was also hitting spin class pretty hard before all my upheaval began, and I haven’t totally fallen off the wagon, so I’m hoping that I’ve minimized any damage to my waistline.

So since the end of the year, I’ve done fairly well. I went to Arkansas and back to Atlanta over the holidays to visit my family and I received a ton of comments on how good I looked. My grandmother even told me that I didn’t need to lose any more weight or otherwise I’d be too skinny (I beg to differ on that one). My new 3fc avatar pic was actually taken during my vacation. I love that pic, I think it looks very nice and “modely”…LOL.  I also wonder if my newfound glow has something to do with the relocation to Dallas? I will say that I am a lot happier here in Dallas than I was when I left Atlanta. I was pretty unhappy with things when I left Atlanta. Here, I’m feeling a lot better, I think it has to do with a number of factors, but I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. As far as the dating goes, I am dating on a regular basis, but no serious contenders as of yet. There was one who came close, but he really pissed me off right before I moved, and didn’t help one iota during the move, so he’s been cut from the team.

I had a major NSV yesterday. I’ve always wanted to shop in White House Black Market, but I felt like I was too big for their clothes. I went in there yesterday with a coworker and fell in LOVE with a shirt. I tried on the shirt and it fit (it was a size XL) - and in fact, it was almost too big! I was talking to the sales associate about the shirt, and she tells me that I look like I could probably wear quite a few items in the store in a size L - that XL’s would probably be too big!

This is the shirt in question:

I’m going back to get that shirt on Friday.

Next stop - Express - I’ve always wanted to shop there for work clothes, but once again, I think I’ve been too big.

Just a quick check in and a status update…

So that extra 6 pounds I was sad about is gone. I attribute the loss to two things - TOM weight gain and my rediscovery of spin class. My last weigh in, I was at 239. Woo hoo!!!

I am happy that the scale is moving back the other direction instead of UP. I have been in the gym more regularly, so I’m sure that’s helping. I’ve made a discovery, though, that I don’t like, and I need to figure out how to deal with it….

I’m in the gym more frequently these days (I’m even doing two a days occasionally) because I don’t really have a social life!

So what’s going to happen when I do make friends and start hanging out more? When the weather turns back warm and I wanna be outside, sitting on the patio, having a martini, and chatting with friends?

Hmmmm…I’ve got approximately 3.5 months to figure that out. You would think that since I’ve been on SBD since 2008, I’d have that part figured out by now.

WRONG. (Insert the Price is Right “Fail/Lose” music here - which is one of my favorite sound effects, by the way. In fact, here’s a link in case you need a laugh/refresher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A )

So I’m happy that the scale is moving again, but what’s going to happen when I have a life again?

*Sigh*.

Well, today I finally made the plunge back into Spin. I had a great time in the class…it was challenging but now physically I feel great. So what’s the matter with me?

Well, right before I went to class, I stepped on the scale and got a very UGLY number. 244. OUCH. I don’t think I’ve seen that weight in almost two years.

I’m not going to lie, I’m sitting here very sad. 6 pounds in one month? YIKES. How is that even possible? It is TOM for me so I am HOPING that is what is causing this weight gain.

So I have decided that I really need to focus on getting these last FIFTY plus pounds off.

1- Exercise 1000+ minutes per month (and I’m doing better gymwise, I almost made 1000 last month!)

2 - Eat on plan

3 - Do a 4/3 of “rich” vs “clean” foods. Let me explain this one. I LOVE to cook. I think this is one of the areas I’m struggling with the diet. I haven’t been really measuring out unlimited foods, and sometimes, I cook foods with a lot of “ingredients”. For example, for dinner, I may have homemade chicken marsala, a side of caesar salad, and SBD mashed potatoes. Each one of those has a LOT of ingredients. I think I am going to scale back and try to eat “clean” 3 or 4 days a week. A “clean” meal would be - for example, broiled fish, steamed asparagus, and salad with vinaigrette dressing. Hopefully that makes sense to the two people that read my blog

4 - No RESTRICTED FOODS in the house. So far on my “restricted list”: Chocolate (I know it’s allowed in small quantities on phase II, but I can’t have them in the house, because if I have a bad day, I’ll binge), Wine, Alcohol, Peanuts (waffling on this one. I love nuts but sometimes they make me “bingey”), Pecans, Flavored Triscuits, Pita Chips.

5 - Try to eat before 9pm. THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE FOR ME. I eat extremely late. I really need to work on this one!

So I’m off to find “dietary inspiration” in some of the reading and weight loss materials I have around the house. I’m trying to do two workouts a day, occasionally, so I’m going to shoot for another workout later today.  I have even toyed with the idea of rejoining weight watchers but I LOATHE counting points.

Since I seem to be having consistency issues with the gym, I figured I’d put together some post-its to help remind me as to why I need to go. Then I decided I’d have it on my blog too…in case I lose the post-its or something. So here goes:

Top ten reasons not to skip the gym:

1. The more you skip, the more painful and “challenging” (and not in a good way) it will be when you go back. You’ll have to indulge in the ben-gay, the more time you spend away from the gym.
2. Exercise helps depression.
3. Where else do you get to hear your favorite party tunes and pretend that you’re “dancing”?
4. You feel good after working out.
5. It helps you stay ahead of the curve - e.g. you won’t have to play “weight loss catch up” if you’re in the gym. “Weight loss catch up” is that game I unintentionally play after holidays and such, where you have to lose an additional 5 to 10 pounds on top of the 30 more I have to go.
6. Does the number 200 look good to you? What about 180?
7. Do the sizes 20w/22w mean anything to you? How about the size “12 wide”?
8. (Sidebar with #7) Do you want to HAVE to shop on the “big girls” side of the store again?
9. Don’t you like showing off the fact that you can run, do 40 minutes on the elliptical (at a nice pace/resistance too!) despite the fact that you’re not a size 6?
10. Do the words high blood sugar/cholesterol/blood pressure mean anything to you?