Back and forth

I haven't been posting too often because I keep going back and forth about my desire to continue... much like I keep going back and forth about my desire to lose more weight.

On one hand, at least 15 people told me I look amazing this weekend and that I look like I lost weight - mind you I am up 7lbs from my lowest weight last year. My fiance loves me no matter what I look like - that was reinforced when he never changed how he treated me whether I weighed 155lbs when I met him or at my *known* peak of 227lbs. But, ultimately I am not satisfied with my body, and I want to feel complete and utter love for my body and comfort in my skin.

I have to do this for myself.

I need to re-focus on myself

If my life only consisted of work, then I could easily say that things are awesome. I am a person, with needs, and what I really need is to re-focus my energy back on myself.

Honestly, my life is revolving around work right now. I am working so hard to get a promotion and I am well on my way, but I am starting to feel like my life is suffering because of this.

Case in point: My "normal" work day is 9.5 hours. The past two weeks I have put in 12 - 16 hours and my health is definitely suffering. We order in food when we work long hours. I have done a decent job of making healthy selections (the good choices: steamed vegetarian dumplings, edamame, chicken satay, miso soup; the bad choices: bagel, cupcake, chicken tikka masala, and a small amount of mac and cheese), but there is absolutely no time for exercise. It is beautiful outside - I should be running! At the very least, I should be popping in the Shred to stay toned. I find it impossible to squeeze in exercise as the long work hours require a certain amount of sleep to maintain focus and energy.

I miss exercise...
I miss running...
I miss yoga...
I miss toning...

I miss weighing-in and seeing a loss every week....

The inner fat girl

I'd like to introduce everyone to my nemesis: my inner fat girl. No one likes her, especially not me. She always thinks she is a welcome when I go out drinking. After I've had a few drinks, she rears her ugly head, demanding food- frozen yogurt covered in mangoes, strawberries, and granola and then a coffee roll from Dunking Donuts- ughhhh. All this after a huge dinner of sushi, really? She's such a beast!

She showed up uninvited on Saturday night when I was trying to have a great night out with my closest friends. A night of fun that I haven't had in awhile. We'll see how much damage she did to my weightloss this week when I weigh in later today....

Happy New Year and Updates

Welcome back to the grind, everyone. I hope you had a fun filled New Years. Mine was filled with lots of debauchery- from gluttonous eating, to excessive drinking, and the ultimate laziness of lounging in bed.
I know that I gained weight because I kept peeking at the scale all week, but I'll officially weigh in tonight and post it soon. I also intend to go back to posting of weekly weightloss. I stopped doing this because the lacks of losses was embarrassing, but I definitely need to keep my weightloss front and center to remind me that progress doesn't come without effort.

Work - Stress Relationship
The hardest part for me is the amount of stress I have been under with work. It really challenges me to fit in any kind of workout, cook proper meals, food shop in a timely manner, and not binge on high fat foods. I have mostly been failing these challenges lately. In positive news, I have started a new project as of today and anticipate a much more regular work hours, yay!

Wedding Stuff
I have less than 330 days to my wedding. This may seem like all the time in the world for weightloss, but the truth of the matter is that I haven't lost any weight since last May, when I reached my all time low of 180lbs. I found my wedding dress in November and it will be ready for fittings in May. I didn't do anything crazy, like order down a wedding dress size so I would truly like to be at my goal weight when the dress comes in so that the fittings can be started immediately. I worry about losing more weight and having my dress hang off of me and not having enough time to take it in. It needs to be a really tight fit because it's a mermaid shape- aka. fitted all the way down the body, almost to the knees.

Baby Steps
I don't have some mastermind of a plan in place for attacking the goal of being at goal by May, mostly because I haven't set aside time to do it, so I'm starting with baby steps for this week to get myself back on track.
Baby Step #1 - exercise at least 4 times this week
Baby Step #2 - do not eat any chocolate candy this week because you have forgotten how to control yourself
Baby Step #3- track your points this week

Hitting a wall

I hit a wall for the second time in my weightloss efforts (the first time being when I started my weightloss journey). I found myself slowly doing away with healthy eating habits that took months (and will take many more months) to develop. After a cheeseburger, fries, AND soda for lunch on Monday I knew I was becoming a different person. Throughout this journey, I haven't ever restricted myself from eating a cheeseburger, fries, or soda BUT I would never be fine with eating that kind of a meal on a regular basis. I wait until I am truly craving a cheeseburger for a few days and then I get a yummy cheeseburger and savor it, usually only consuming 1/2 to 3/4 of it.
This cheeseburger incident is only one of the few horrific choices I have made lately. I have become lazy about preparing my food. I put my foot down though and went food shopping on Monday. I have made all breakfasts and lunches since then. It's only been two days, but it's two days of calories and money saved by making these meals. Bringing my breakfasts and lunches has also ensured that I get more fruit and veggies into my diet.

Food and Moves for the week;
Monday
B- oatmeal with brown sugar, almonds, and dried cranberries
L- Cheeseburger, fries, coke
D- Whole wheat pasta with shrimp and artichoke hearts in garlic white wine sauce
S- none
E- 20 mins shoulders and abs

Tuesday
B- bagel with 1tbsp butter
L- Smartones egg sandwich
D- pizza (2 slices) and salad with 1 tbsp vinegarette
S- 2 clementines, red wine
E

Wednesday
B- yogurt strawberries and sliced almonds, fiber one bar
L- sandwich thin with hummus, roasted red pepper, spinach, and roast beef
D- lemon chicken, cous cous, and spinach
S- non-fat latte, grapes
E- hitting up the gym tonight!

Only

I've been a bit glum lately. I've been down on myself for a lack of weightloss. I finally hit a point where I was no longer proud of my accomplishments. I found myself using descriptors such as "only" all too often.

As in, I only ran 2.2 miles on Friday. Or, I only lost a 1/2 pound this week.

Pshhhh! Would I have ever used the word only in front of the action 2 miles only one year? Yes, but it would have read something like this:

I have only ran 2 miles twice in my life. Or, I have only gained 10 pounds this holiday season.

I need to stop kicking my own ass. I have to remember to build myself up. We all need to be reminded of this, and this week I can thank Meredith for opening my eyes. She lost a very dear friend and a wonderful woman last week. I read her post this morning and it hit me. We shouldn't have to lose loved ones to remember the importance of love.

Running- but in what direction?

I've been a good little runner. I got in a few more good runs recently. Not all of the runs came easily though. I had a really difficult run last Friday, but I am proud to say that I pushed through it. At one mile, I wanted to quit- it was cold and windy and I seemed to be running at a snail's pace. I made myself go two miles regardless of how fast my pace was and then pushed myself to go another half mile and then another mile until I completed 3 miles in 30 minutes.

Needless to say, I have been running and running, but in what direction? My weight is still fluctuating between 180 and 183 lbs. I had a great week- I brought my lunch all week to work, I had dinner at home Sunday - Wednesday and then I ate out three nights in a row- Thai takeout, Japanese hibachi, and an American restaurant. I made a partial effort to watch my eating but I find myself at the high end of my weight fluctuations yet again because of my half-hearted efforts.

I want to continue to lose weight but I am holding myself back. At times, I feel comfortable with my body. I also find myself enjoying what I am eating and not wanting to cut out anything more. I am definitely unsure of my direction, but I plan to keep running.

The Curse of Comfort

I like the way I look. I feel comfortable in my skin.

This is a curse.

Sure, I could be a bit more toned, but I feel like my wanting to be more toned is insatiable- A feeling that will always be with me. But, I really like the shape of my body right now and the proportion.

One might think loving your body should be uncomplicated, but it is not. I have found that it makes it all too easy to maintain your current weight when you love your body. I think that what has been wrong with my attempts at weightloss for the past few months is that I see nothing wrong with my body.

A Tale of Two Cheesesticks

Two polly-o cheesesticks frighten the hell out of me. How could a seemingly delicious snack scare someone?

Well, let's go back 8 years to my sophomore year in high school... Everyday for lunch I walked to my best friends house for lunch. She only lived a few blocks from our high school, so the walk never took too long. Upperclassman students at my high school had the privilege of going out for lunch to their homes or local food places if their parents signed a permission slip. When we'd get to her house, I would get my lunch out of the refrigerator...

Two polly-o cheesesticks

I can remember eating my lunch very slowly and very methodically, trying to make the food last as long as I could, pulling hairlike strands of cheese off the stick and placing it in my mouth, barely tasting a thing. I would chase the cheesesticks with one bottle of water. That concluded my lunch. I never used to think there was anything wrong with eating that everyday for lunch, but when I think about my breakfast- nothing or a granola bar- and my dinner- a bowl of soup or a salad- and paired with 2 hour practices for competitive cheerleading, I realize now that I was not consuming enough food.

Sure, I was at my lowest weight and smallest size of a 6/7, and loving the attention of my body was garnering, but I'm sure my body was suffering from the lack of calories and nutrition it needed to keep up with school and practice.

I don't think I would go as far as to call it anorexia, but it certainly was not a healthy relationship food. It's amazing how healthy I thought I was just because I had managed to get into a size 6. I know now that health doesn't correlate with a size.

I feel healthier now at a much larger size 12. I, and others, need to be reminded that a good relationship with food takes work, but the benefits of a healthy body will make you feel better than any silly size regarded as "the perfect size".

Sheer exhaustion

It has been a rough week. I have been working 10-12 hour days with a 2.5 hour commute round trip. There just isn't enough time or energy. I have felt really drained, and I finally had a meltdown on Wednesday. It was a good old fashioned cry fest, and it felt soooooo good. I followed it up with some liquor, pizza, a trashy movie, and lots of hot sex- all my favorite indulgences in one night ;-)
Maybe indulging isn't always a good idea, but I feel much better. Work is still just as rough, but I somehow feel better.

I haven't been tracking my points all week, so my plan to stay on track was to just eat as similarly as possible to the last two weeks when I tracked everything- I think it's working, but we'll see for sure on Monday when I weigh in.
I also haven't gotten in any exercise. I plan to break this trend tonight with a 50 minute sweat fest a la Jillian Michaels- Banish Fat and Boost Metabolism, and tomorrow I hope to get in a run.

I'm finally catching up with everyone's blogs and it's fun to see how everyone has been. Happy Friday!

It's Clicking

Slowly but surely everything I know about weight loss and that my faithful commenters keep reminding me of is "clicking". I tracked everything I ate yesterday instead of adding up the points in my head from my best guesses. After lunch, I evaluated how many points I had left for dinner, and then I cooked a dinner based on the available points.

I rinsed and repeated today, but I went a step further and instead of eating a high point breakfast like I have been for the past 2 weeks, I ate a small 3pt breakfast and a 2pt snack 2.5 hours later. I ate a bigger lunch at 9pts and have a 1pt apple lined up for my afternoon snack. Low and behold, I am feeling more full and satisfied with my food.

It's amazing how we know these things- eat more filling foods, eat more often and in smaller quantities, track your points- but we sometimes choose to forget them or think we know them so well that we need not be mindful of them or even track them. I am not special nor am such a pro at weightloss that I am above tracking my points. Last time I had become too lax, it took me 7 months to realized that I couldn't just pay for the Weight Watchers eTools and lose weight. Hmmm, go figure! I hope I am able to continue to put these into practice so I can say this time it took me only a few weeks to realize the error of my ways.

Gaining some weight and some perspective

I gained over the past two weeks: 3.6lbs.

I understand physically why the gain happened: excess calories and not enough exercise, but I really need to evaluate why mentally/emotionally. I realized two things: 1) I still have an emotional eating problem. It got me to be 227lbs. I have not cured myself of this by losing weight. 2) I have become lax in my weight loss efforts because I am kinda happy with the way I look right now. I know that's typically a good thing, but I think I have used hate of my body as motivation to lose. I also convinced myself that the 180's are where my body is happiest, i.e. it maintains at this weight very easily.

Bullshit! I call bullshit on myself. I could have deemed any weight decade to be my comfy zone, the weight range at which my body is happy. My body is not happy there- it knows it can do better. It remembers being 160lbs and it liked it. My mind is happy there- convinced it couldn't possibly fit in another workout or plan ahead more with meals.

I know I can do better and I must.

Fitness has not been my focus

Starting a new project for work is always a difficult time for me and my fitness is never the focus- where in the country will my next project be? What will I be doing? What will my day be like? Will I like the people I work with?
And then there are the health and fitness related concerns- Will there be a fridge for my snacks/lunch? Will there be healthy options available to buy in case I can't bring lunch? Will I be able to maintain my current workout routine? Will I have a few minutes during the day to track my food and check out my favorite weightloss bloggers?

The last two weeks of my life have been consumed with these thoughts as I settled into a new project. So, what's the verdict? The commute is different as it is the first time I am taking public instead of driving and it can be very interesting- there are some real characters that commute into NYC: Every morning there are the usual "Blackberry Prayers" where everyone bows their heads over their blackberries as they pound the tiny keys feverishly. Some of the people I work with are awesome and some of them I'd like to beat with a blunt object. My days are long right now: over an hour to get into the city, 10 hours at work, and 1 hour home. The food options are optimal for watching what I eat but there are also a lot of delicious temptations around. But again, fitness hasn't been my focus.

I am trying to remedy these feelings by getting myself excited again to exercise, but so far I have only been semi-successful. I thought maybe another race would get me excited again about running but I can't find any 5K's or 8K's that are coming up anytime soon so that idea is out the window. So far this week I ran on Saturday and Monday, and I hope to motivate myself to run again tonight.

Bermuda 2009 and My 24th Birthday

My fiance and I had a great time in Bermuda. It was my first big-girl vacation, as it was the first trip I had taken since graduating from college last year.

Me in St. George, Bermuda

I also celebrated my 24th birthday while we were away. My goodness, where does the time go?! Even though time is fleeting, I felt great on my birthday. I reflected on where I am now in my life in terms of weight loss and where I want to be. I realized that unless I am willing to make more concessions on my food choices, that I am destined to stay this weight because my body is comfortable here. Well, my body may be comfortable, but I am not comfortable here.

My fiance surprised me by having our cruise cabin decorated

Then he surprised me with a special blue box :-)

Happy Birthday to me: dinner at a Mediterranean place in Bermuda

More celebrating was had when I returned from Bermuda. My family had a bbq, bought me an ice cream cake, and made me play drinking games all night. Well, maybe they didn't make me ;-)

Reeses ice cream cake...drool

Losing the drinking game, pouting about it, and being punished by sitting under the table

I feel lucky and blessed to have a wonderful fiance, family, and my health. I would not be the person I am without their love and support. Their faith in me has given me the strength I needed to lose weight and become a happier person in the process.

Just me- that's all I can be

No, this is not some fruity rhyming post nor anything overly emotional where I divulge the years of pain my weight gain has brought. This was just a particularly trying week for me emotionally. My emotionally distress caused me to fall ill with a fever on Wednesday into Thursday.

I have not felt like myself. I am finally starting to feel better. I hadn't done any true exercise since Monday thanks to my depressive mood, but I pulled myself together last night to do my 40 minutes of circuit training with Jillian Michaels. I upped my hand weights to 5lbs from 3lbs. I'm definitely feeling it today. I am glad that I did not allow myself to be lazy and skip yet another workout. It made me feel strong and empowered.

I posted a -1.0lb loss the week which felt great. I am a slow loser, but I prefer it that way. I get to eat out more than once a week, and when I go out I enjoy alcohol, appetizers, and desserts- something a strict weight watcher might cringe at, but I've made my own rules throughout this process and they work for me.

I'm looking forward to a run today, let's hope the weather holds out. It has rained 18 out of the first 22 days of June so who knows. I can't wait to be on vacation next week- that's right kiddies, I'm off to cruise to Bermuda on Sunday and I can't wait to say Bon Voyage for a bit.

Sometimes You Just Want a Doughnut

So you have one.......

I really REALLY didn't want to go to work today. I wanted to lay in bed all day and wallow in my pissy mood. Instead, I got ready really slowly and made a stop at Dunkin Donuts before getting to work. I called my boss and he requested donuts, so I picked up a dozen and some munchkins. I got myself a flatbread egg sandwich, but those doughnuts were calling my name. So, I had one as I sat down to my computer at work. Then, I typed in my password, which reminds me of my weight loss goals.

The doughnut still tasted just as good, and feelings of sadness and regret didn't wash over me. I just enjoyed my doughtnut, like a regular person (ya know, the kind that can control portion sizes and not have guilt after calorie splurging once in awhile). It's rather nice to feel like a regular doughtnut-eating person.

I think it's important for my mental progress to document these feelings. I think it's important to sometimes just have a doughnut.

Emotional Wreckage

This week has been emotionally challenging...

I'm really starting to miss my fiance. I mean, we have been glued at the hip for the past 5 1/2 years, and as stupid and trite as it sounds he is my best friend.

It really hit me when I got the terrible news that a friend from college was found dead over the weekend in a river. Homicide or suicide (most likely the latter) ended her life. She was a petite adorable Filipino who always smiled, asked how you were, and listened sympathetically if something was not right in your world. She will be missed.

I really could have inflicted some bodily damage by overeating to fill the emotional void, but I've been eating surprisingly healthy, and I haven't missed a day of exercise this week. I think when I'm truly shaken to the core, I feel glad to be alive, healthy, and able to exercise.

My body feels really strong this week- good thing, because it has to haul around tons of emotional wreckage....

Weighing Less, Wanting More

I purchased a ww online 3 month package for my mom for Christmas so we have been sharing recipes, weigh ins, etc on the phone ever since. Last time I spoke to her, however, I really noticed a change in her. She is a strong woman emotionally, but she is very meek in pursuing what she wants. She is also the sole care provider for my disabled father and grandmother with severely progressed Alzheimer's. Needless to say, she knows all to well about putting others first.

Well, she told me that she had lost 9lbs so far and that she also wants to learn to speak Italian (p.s- she wants to speak Italian so she can teach her grandchildren it- talk about pressure, I just got engaged!). I wanted to cry. I am so happy that she is realizing that she is worth more than suppressing her wants and desires. She deserves to do things because she wants to do them, and that should be good enough for anyone. Talking to my mom reminded me of something....

the less I weigh, the more I want for myself

I allow myself more happiness at a lesser weight. I expect more out of myself. I want the best possible for me.

Body Comparison

I've been down on myself lately because of the fact that I had a slight gain and haven't been able to exercise with this illness. So, I decided to pull up pictures from this Christmas and last Christmas to remind myself of my progress and hopefully lift my spirits.

I don't even recognize that girl from one year ago.....

Old me (220 something pounds), Current me (194 lbs)

Ambition

I've always been someone that knows what they want and sets out to get it. I truly believe that I hold the power, know-how, and drive to achieve what I want.

I really love the image of the blonde women that I chose to grace this blog. Every time I see it, I reminds me of how I feel on the inside. She has her eyes set on something. Her smile is intentionally knowing... knowing her own strength, knowing what she wants, and knowing that eventually she'll get "it", whatever "it" is at the time being.

I'm big on the power of symbols, so I'm thinking about getting this image printed on canvas and hanging it in my home to remind me and empower me. And every time I see it, I'll have that same little knowing smile about how far I've come and the direction I'm heading in.