song of the road

I am hanging on there. Not much progress. Eating is still good. No exercise these two days. Last week I worked out 2 days I think. It will stay crazy like this till 1st week of May. Hopefully things will settle down post my software implementation. Do plan to get back on track with a vengeance. I am taking it as a good sign that I am not particularly bothered that I can’t fit in workouts right now. I know I will. Right now for a few weeks, work IS a higher priority. But I am eating well. I slipped a couple of times last week and had a mini-binge from stress. But been good over the weekend and this week so far. Haven’t lost any weight but haven’t gained any either. TOM ended today. There could still be a tiny loss.

So fingers crossed and keeping to plan as much as possible. Hope you all are doing very well too. Best wishes to you all and me.

The past week has been reasonably decent. I have lost a couple of pounds. In my gym scale I weigh about 10 lbs more than my home scale. I am for now sticking to the home scale. It is analog and less used, so more liable to be correct. Will check weight later at doctor’s too.

I had been able to work out only 3 days last week. All those 3 days were intense. But on Thursday and Friday, I had too much work and my trainer couldn’t make it on Friday. Plan for this week is to work out on all 5 days of the working week.

What I feel I have done really well is in the food department. I have managed to have my last meal of the day considerably early. Even the weekend was pretty good. I had come to work on Saturday and had a small pizza at lunch. Other than that it has been mostly on plan. Had tons of stir-fry and salad over the weekend. This must be the first weekend where I have not gained back weight lost during the work week.

All in all - good start. Planning to fine-tune the eating still a bit more. Working on reducing the gaps between meals by having a fruit juice (made fresh in the cafetaria), a small piece of cheese or a glass of low fat buttermilk. I could eat a few nuts too. But not yet going there. So the logic is if I keep eating small portions at proper intervals, the BMR will stay up. Of course it won’t be possible on all days. Many days real life will catch up and I will have long gaps between meals. But would work on making that less and if it does happen I won’t be too upset.

That’s about all ladies. I was planning to add to my happiness list but the internet was intermittent this weekend. Will catch up on that.

Much love and best wishes to you all. Keep at it and we all will get there.

A good feeling is there. It feels that I will not fail this time. I will be thin at the end of it this time. Hallucinating? Perhaps! But somehow I feel positive and full of hope.

I have started reading the 3FC forums now. Pretty late. Somehow seeing so many ladies trying and quite so many succeeding too has perhaps brought on the hope. My google reader is loaded up to the gills with 3FC forum threads. I have subscribed to the blogs too there. (This is why I have read each of your entries almost as soon as you made them but haven’t gotten around to commenting always - plan to correct that today). I have now started to skim through my reader once or twice during work too. If I stop that because of work load, I will definitely read some on my way to and from work - on my cell. I am reducing my chances of getting distracted.

I have been to gym almost at all opportunities in last couple of weeks. Have changed my work timings to hit work early and get out by 7:30-8 pm. I have started with a trainer too. I had two sessions with him. I have liked him. He got me to do good work-outs. I was quite tired and sore by the end of them. He is not unnecessarily pushy and keeps to the point. Poor guy turns up in the evening only for my slot. Hopefully we will form a good partnership. My first trainer S was fabulous. Then the last one was not great at all. I plan to meet the dietician too - at least for one session.

My days are slightly better structured now. The working out in the evening is going well so far. I am not so tired that I can’t work out. It gets rid of some stress too. I am sleeping better. My eating is slowly getting better. It is roughly as below

· Breakfast at 7:00 am (Ungodly hour for a breakfast really) – Mostly savory oats or 2 chapattis with a bowl of curry

· Mid-morning snack – so far nothing other than cups of black tea. May drink some buttermilk or something.

· Lunch at 1:30/2 pm – 3 chapattis + 1 bowl of curry + 1 bowl of lentil soup + 1 bowl of plain homemade yoghurt. Will try to replace one of the above bowls with a bowl of salad

· Mid-afternoon snack – black tea

· Evening snacks at 5:30/6 pm – Plan to have an apple or a serving of fruit salad and a serving of beans salad. More work needed here. I end up mostly eating something else from cafeteria which is not vey healthy. Not very oily but not vey good either. If I miss this, I almost feel like passing out while working out. I did that last Friday and most definitely not plan to repeat the experience.

· Post workout snack at 9:30 pm or so – a glass of protein shake – made with whey protein and water.

This is what I am working at. So far I have not been perfectly been able to stick to it. I have been advised to eat a fruit immediately after getting up. I get up around 6:30 am, often 15-20 minutes late. Not able to fit in a fruit here yet. Let’s see. I need to include more vegetables and salads. It is a bit of a fight seeing that I am outside from 7 am to 10:30 pm or so. My mom can do only so much. Also it has become very hot in Mumbai these days. It is very difficult to keep food well for longish periods.

On non-weight-loss front, we had a good 3-day vacation last weekend. We went to Ajanta and Ellora. They are world heritage sites in the same state, about 400 km away from Mumbai. They have awe inspiring cave paintings (about 2500 years old in Ajanta) and stone carvings and statues (about 1500 years old in Ellora). We were so proud to see how advanced we were so long back. And where we are now! There is so much to be done. Anyways we went to a fort there too. That’s about 700 years old. It had an unbelievable defense set up. There are 3-4 concentric walls with strategic corners and gaps for archers and boiling-oil-pourers (!!), gates and false gates, stairs with uneven treads. moats which were filled with alligators. It even has a maze which is pitch dark (called a bat cave I think) and which has many false corridors going out of it. One can easily get lost. We went in with a guide who actually lit a wood and oil torch and it was deadly scary even today. The Daulatabad fort has much fascinating history too. It was such fun listening to the stories. The fort has never been conquered. Of course an insider betrayed the king when it fell for the first time. Even with complete inside information, the first conqueror put up a siege and did not dare to attack. Afterwards it always changed hands as part of pacts made. Anyway it was all great fun – this vacation. It was very hot though. I had hoped the long walks and climbing stairs in the blazing hot sun would make me lose weight. I gained a few pounds!! Guess it was because I did not particularly watch what I was eating and had quite a few cocktails in the hotel watching the cricket matches in the evening. Things have been better since then – I mean on the weight loss front.

Things are a bit stormy at work. The dreaded Mr. V is being given a part of my team. His project would wind up end of this year. So my boss has decided to split up which I so far was thinking of as my portfolio. I have been very very angry and depressed and was feeling betrayed and all that. I have poured my heart out in this job. I really liked my boss too. This would slow down my growth by quite a bit. Anyway I am mostly settled down with this now. I don’t plan to quit. Let’s see how things turn out. If I am better than V, then sooner or later I will win. If V is better, well, I will have to learn to live with that too. Since the split is not clean and there is much overlap between us, there is going to be many clashes in the coming months. We have different management styles. I resent him for coming in to my territory. I am sure he has plenty of reasons to dislike me too. We will keep head butting again and again. The loyalty of the team is going to be tested too. My run of good luck has turned around a bit now. Anyways I have mostly come to terms with it. For one thing, I am no CEO material – V or no V. So a bit of slow growth or even no growth wouldn’t kill me. For the other, I can stop killing myself over work. I should and can concentrate on my weight loss and later on adoption. I always thought I am not resistant to change. But when a change came up and it threatened me even a little bit, I reacted badly badly. I need to stay cool and patient. It won’t be easy. But I can do it. Things are going to be fun (not really). I will discover some more strength inside me hopefully. To be fair, unless I can handle such reverses, I really should not hope for growth too.

Some bit of good news too. It is almost 90% sure I would be coming to UK for a couple of months from mid-May. A couple more folks from my team would be coming with me. That idiot V will come too. I would be staying in Leeds and Bournemouth and will definitely visit London. I was just looking them up a bit today on internet. Such gorgeous places – oh my! I am so looking forward to the visit. It will perhaps be another blip on the weight-loss journey. Not that I plan to let it be – not at all. Hours will be lot less crazy there and there will be a gym in the hotel. I plan to eat well and get my trainer to give me a workout routine to which I will stick. In my list of places must-see before I die, I would be able to strike off London now. I have been to Tokyo and Chicago before. (Chicago was beautiful but not on my must-see list). I still need to go to New York, Paris, Rome and Cairo in the least. And I want to go to Africa at least once – Masaimara reserve forest – once – oh please please!

If you have still been with me so far, wish you all the very best on your weight loss journey. Love you. I am with you at every step of the way.

Yiippppeeee.. made it to gym today.. first day of a long journey.. awfully tired but feeling good…

Love you all

Sunday (21st March)

That’s what I want to be in the coming week. Last week was very slow on the weight loss front. I went to the gym near my office. It is quite good. I was supposed to join last Wednesday. Consistently on all three days starting from Wednesday, I could not make it to the gym again. To sum up the progress - I found the gym and I made to work by 8 am every single day. Going early happened. Now I need to make leaving early happen. It will - I know. I will set up reminder from 6 pm which will flash every 15 mins to remind me about working out. I should then be able to leave by 7:30 pm.

On the not so good news front - my teeth is acting up again. This is a signal that my blood sugar is up again.

Later - Tuesday evening (23rd March)

Well, that was all that I wrote on Sunday. After which brother and I had a marathon chatting session. Talked and talked. It was good fun. Got too late and fell asleep about 1 am.

Had gone to the gym and paid the admission fee for 3 months. That’s the part I am always successful. Have an initial counselling planned for Thursday. The plan was to do cardio today and yesterday. But came home early today. I am planned to come to UK in May. Need to file a ton of paperwork. Had misplaced some tax returns. Went through a mountain of old papers looking for these. Very happy to say that I have found them. Now all is well. Need to get photographed tomorrow, per specifications.

Plan to stay as positive and as happy as possible. I need to grow more calm and cool. That’s what I want to be to lose weight and be better in my job.

Lots of love to all of you.

Have been adding some good stuff to read to my google reader. I loved this short story that cropped up.

http://www.littlemag.com/family/kamala.html

Before coming to what’s on my mind today, let me sum up today. Foodwise it was about okay. Had protein shake as breakfast, chapatis and a couple of veg curries as lunch, pineapple and a couple of grilled sandwiches were dinner. had a diet coke somewhere in between. Workwise it was crazy again. Also I kept feeling blah. Lots of tension there. Nothing end-of-life but just gathering up. But then I am better than how I was last year. So chin up and hang on.

What I am trying to figure out is how to focus on weight loss. My main focus is work these days. I am doing reasonably well there. At least I am consistently and with discipline plugging on day after day. Hopefully intelligently too. But when it comes to an effort on weight loss, I keep losing steam every 3 days. On one hand, I think I am not too good in having two major focus areas at once. When I had to study hard to do well in a fiercely competitive entrance test to get in engineering college, I did nothing on the alternative study path I was trying to keep open. When I was in love a couple of times, I did neglect my work both times to a good extent. Now that I am working, looks like I can almost not diet and work out. But that is not how it should be. Everyone is taking care of family, their own self, work and then lose weight.

I am planning to use almost all free minutes this week to figure out how to do this. How do I bring the focus back? Do I do some kind of a remembering exercise every morning to set the tone? May be reading or reminding me of something on the way to work. Podcasts perhaps! Let me think. I need to stay on the path for a while for anything to happen. When I lost weight last time, the rapport I shared with my trainer was an anchor that kept me rooted. Need something else this time.

The ideas that occur to me top of the head

1. Listen to one fitness/weight loss podcast every morning

2. Read one fitness or weight loss article in the morning

3. Try to work out an eating and working out plan for a week or for a day?

4. Set up a screensaver at work laptop which can act as a reminder to my goal of weight loss

5. Break the bigger goal in to smaller sizable goals and plan accordingly

Anything else occurs to you? What has worked for you. Any help most welcome.

Planning to add one positive thing that happened on a day or in very recent past here. Anything that made me happier. This is a small part of a project to become generally more happy. Will be making the list of 100 things that make me happy with round.

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Positive note

Remember Mr. V. He is a peer who is a big competitor in the work place. He is joining my team now. I kept on having visions that my team members will be happier and more relieved to see him joining us. That did not seem to be the case when I announced this today. They were a bit curious and nothing more. It does sound a bit weird but I genuinely like everyone in my team (except one or two whom I like a little less) and am a bit jealous about their affection.

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Tired out of mind today. I somehow run out of steam periodically. Must be my health. Because hear people doing 70 hour weeks etc. I stayed at work for 13 hours today and add 2 more hours of travel and I am dead today. Also to add on, had a couple of important meetings today, about which I had been stressing for a while. So all done reasonably well. Have another meeting in a while. But decided to bunk. Will get my updates later. Just waiting for one piece of mail to come and I am out of here.

Eating has not been that well. Didn’t seem too bad either. It has been generally healthy but not very weight loss kind. I have gained 1 pound. But surprisingly enough have no energy to feel particularly downbeat about it. Will need to get in to working out. That seems to work for me. Will need more planning to eat cleaner.

Watched a couple of very different movies this weekend. One is Inglorious Basterds. Obvioulsy loved it. Quentin Tarantino and underdogs winning left a good taste in my mind. The other is a tamil movie. It’s an old one actually. It’s about a 9 year old girl who finds out she is adopted and then insists on searching for her mother. Her adoptive parents knew about her biological mother who was a refugee from Sri Lanka. Then they go to a war-torn Sri Lanka in search of her and eventually after almost not meeting her, the girl meets her. A few times in the search they get caught in the middle of blasts, bombings, evacuations, gunfire battles. The family runs really scared and a bit hopeless at times. The bio mom was a revolutionary who almost decides on not meeting her daughter. Where the two meet eventually is beautifully done too.

The movie is beautifully shot on a haunting backdrop of South India and Srilanka. There is one scene where the Srilankan refugees are shown literally standing in the middle of the sea, with their own country not safe and this one not welcoming them either. Anyways what particularly hit me is the kind of unconditional patience and love got extended by the adoptive parents to the small girl who did seem spolied quite a few times. Between both of them they almost ran ragged. What would I do? Sure that was perhaps an unusual situation. But still… don’t know. Remember an adoption forum mentioning that this movie has set back adoption by quite an amount. Could be too. The movie did seem reasonably okay, not particularly promoting any agenda or anything.

Anyways, my mail now has come now. So bye for now ladies. Hope you are faring better than me.

Already lost count of the days on the plan The plan to eat clean is chugging on. 3 out of 4 days last week were reasonably good. 1 day I ate noodles instead of customary fruits as my evening snack. Couldn’t eat dinner at work as planned. Was hungry later at night. Ate very badly then. Blame the start of TOM for this. Otherwise did quite well - chose cleaner food. Would need to work on the serving sizes specially over weekends. Let’s see when can get started with exercising.

Slept most of today. Working this evening. First thought out goals and to-do for 2010 - what I would do beyond the work of my reportees. Looks like this year I am still lucky. All that I am planning to do fall in this category anyway. As my reportees start progressing on, this will become harder. However listing all I need to do, is incresing my anxiety a bit. Would need major hard work, balancing, time management, cool head and confidence to pull all this off. Then have an one-to-one meeting next week with our new line-of-business head. Was planning out what I would need to say or may be asked. Will get more info from the team on Monday. Hope I have covered all grounds. Hope I will make a good impression. Now I need to start reading on actual work.

Hope you all doing very well in weight loss and in life. My best to each of you.