Saturday, December 22, 2007

Have a Festive Festivus and Happy New Year

See you in 2008.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Drumroll, Please...

This morning when I hopped on the scale--I'm weighing daily right now to keep myself motivated/on the straight and narrow; it keeps me from being all, well, I had a cookie yesterday so I should just go all to hell with myself the rest of the day and start over tomorrow--and it read:

174.5

Woohoo.

Ten pounds down and pre-holiday goal reached. Now to just keep it there until the New Year!

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

One to Go

I've had a mini goal of a ten pound loss before going away to the in-laws for the holidays and as of this morning, I have one pound to go.

Not sure if I can pull it off, since we leave on Saturday, but I'm going to give it my all.

And just so's you know I'm not starving myself, for dinner last night I had a slice of pizza. That would be a NYC slice, which is about as big as your head. I planned for it.

The other goal is to maintain my loss so far over the holidays. I'm never particularly tempted by the cooking at the in-laws, so the eating probably won't be so hard. I won't, however, have access to a treadmill. It's a teeninsy town and there's not even a gym I could join as a guest. There's a Y, but they'll be closed much of the week we're there. Running outside in the winter is out for me. Maybe if I'd built up to it, but I can feel the asthmatic wheeze now just thinking about it. Long walks will be in order. One of The Husband's sisters has a rambunctious dog that she's planning on bringing, and he needs daily walks of at least an hour, or he will eat the house. I'll have to get back to the Couch to 5K program when I get back, maybe repeating week 4.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

It's a Gym, Not a Nightclub

For the second C to 5K workout in a row (I've got one more to go for Week 4), someone reeking of perfume and/or heavily scented deodorant or man froufrou has planted her/himself next to me on the adjacent treadmill about halfway through my "run" and caused me to have a mild asthma attack. My options when this happens are to move to another machine if one's available (and usually there aren't), or have to tough it out.

It's infuriating and I hate these people and burn holes in them with the ol' stinkeye as I'm wheezing along.

It's the gym, yo. You're not supposed to smell like roses.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Re: The Starbucks Gingerbread Scone

Debbi commented on the last post that she'd read on several blogs about the notorious Starbucks gingerbread scone. I eyeballed one this morning as I waited in line. And I started looking at all the treats there in the case.

Here's the dealio about Starbucks sweeties: they always look good, but taste, when I've indulged in the past, has been rather like sugared cardboard. The naming is what hooks you. Who wouldn't drool at the thought of a pepperment mocha? A sticky toffee muffin? But really and truly, bleah. Every single time I've actually eaten one, or ordered something decadent sounding, it's always been a huge disappointment and I get mad at myself for having wasted the calories that I could have spent on, I don't know, real food? Or a nice dessert somewhere good.

Tempting they still are, for sure. Just have to keep reminding myself the way that stuff tastes. I'm sure as hell not going to bust out here with "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." Warm homemade chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. That tastes better than thin feels. I'll save my discretionary calorie fund for something like that.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Grinchy

It snowed then sleeted here yesterday. Left the office early and slid along Lexington down to Grand Central under a decrepit umbrella that kept blowing inside out. By the time I got to the train, I was boiling mad at the world and everyone in it. Really got to get back to regular yoga practice. I've noticed my anger level rise steadily since I slacked off on it. And my anxiety level as well.

I absolutely hate this time of year. Really and truly. I can't figure out exactly why. I don't care for the crass commercialism, and I resent having to participate in it, because it is expected and it is the polite and civil thing to do when dealing with family situations. You don't show up to the in-laws for a week at their house without gifts. And I do like making people happy by giving them something nice. It's the fact that I have to do it, I guess, or that there's no real way out of it, that gets to me.

There is also the general head-up-the-assery that happens with people in the city, the rise in rudeness because every one else is preoccupied and stressed out and has too much on their lists of things to do.

Also the grey skies.

It all gets me depressed, and it gets worse each year. I think there must also be some deeply buried family drama down there somewhere that I haven't been able to properly excavate, and it's festering.

So, I was mad. Depressed. And when I got home I felt like inhaling the entire contents of the refrigerator and pantry, but did not. It was sill bingey-like behavior though what I was eating was all low-calorie, like celery and 1% cottage cheese. It wasn't the amount, because I really didn't eat all that much, but the let's have this and then five minutes later being back in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open and getting something else that was binge-like.

It's been hard for me to admit that I'm an emotional eater, and that I have a tendency toward binge-eating. My sister has binge eating disorder. It's not how I gained weight this time, though I did, when I was younger, the summer after my first year of college, binge my way up into the 180's. This time the problem was--as it has also always been, thanks to clean plate club mentality and eating too fast--simply not stopping when I was full.

That and getting older and developing a sharp sweet tooth. Bready carbs and cheese used to be my enemy. Now enemy mine is the frosted gingerbread scone whispering to me from the Starbuck's case when I'm getting coffee.

I am happy about one thing: today is Friday.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

I Survived

I managed to negotiate the office lunch, wine and cheese party, and big holiday party without going completely nuts and diving headfirst into the chocolate fountain or drinking my weight in red wine.

So woohoo.

I'd also lost enough so that my dress was much more comforatable than it was when I bought it. It fit when I bought it, but it fit. I like a little wiggle room.

Am I the only woman on the planet who can't wear high heels, just as a by the by? I had bought some to wear with my dress, not super high--they had sort of a blocky platform heel, 3 1/2 inches I think--and after clomping up and down the hall in the apartment a few times, I decided that I would be miserable if I had to wear them and in serious pain if I had to walk more than a block. I ran out and got some flats at the last minute and was so happy I did.

I always feel like I'm missing some essential female gene or something because I just can't tolerate any kind of a heel at all.

This morning the scale hovered on 177 and I really thought it was going to stick before settling on 177.5. I'm doing the first week 4 workout of Couch to 5K tonight, and it's a big learning curve, so maybe that scale will stick tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Minefield

I sure was smart to try to get back on track during the holidays, eh? Everywhere I turn there are gingerbread men winking at me, trays of treats. I have to go to a lunch at work today, and then after work, I will have to face my big weaknesses: cheese and wine. Cheese and wine, people! There will also be crackers, which I could eat by the box. Tomorrow night is the big black tie holiday party for work.

Am trying to eat light so that I can accommodate the extras.

I guess I should look on the bright side; if I had waited and continued on my course through the holidays, I'd be staring down a bigger task than trying to lose 20 lbs.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Fickle

Hoo boy, what a difference in feeling about a weight I have on the way down rather than on the way up. This morning I was 179, and it fluttered just briefly on 178.5 before settling there. I'm going to the gym tonight to do my couch to 5K run, the last workout of Week 3 (I'm scared of Week 4, which is a huge jump in actual running time), so maybe tomorrow the 178.5 will stick.

I was thinking this morning about these weights and how, back when I was still trying to lose and weighed 15 pounds less than I am now and was mad because I wasn't losing more, that 179 would have been anathema to me, and now here I am happy to see it.

In general, I'm trying not to think about where I was when I decided I was going to stop trying to lose weight. And I'm trying not to think too much about how far I have to go to get to where I want to be. Just one day at a time.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Setting a Realistic Goal

I turned 40 this summer. I started noticing my body changing, though, when I hit my mid-30's. When I gain weight now, I gain it differently than I used to. It all goes to my midsection now, as opposed to my butt.

Part of my getting a handle on this latest gain has included signing up for and using Spark People. They automatically set my goal weight for me at 137.

I'm trying to remember the last time I weighed 137.

I think it was while I was going through the divorce from my first husband and was living on cigarettes and black coffee.

I weighed in the mid 140's through most of high school, not mid 130's. And through most of my adult life, when I haven't been starving and getting down to 119 in college or stress eating my way into the 180's, when things are as they should be, I'm usually in the mid-150s. I'd like to get there again and stay there.

So I'm saying goal weight: 155.

This morning I was at 179.5.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Smelly Smells

Work is slow right now, which is why I'm sitting here blogging instead of perpetrating more evil (I work in advertising now as opposed to nonprofit, where I'd been for six years). Someone, somewhere in the labyrinth of cubes, is eating some kind of breakfast sandwich. I can smell it. And it smells really good.

Since I've gotten back on track (for three entire days, ya'll), which includes not giving into everything I want whenever I want, since I often wanted things like greasy breakfast sandwiches, my sense of smell has kicked into overdrive.

This is not always a good thing in NYC, though mercifully it is winter time here, and it's cold. When the temperature rises above about 50 degrees, things start to stink.

Yesterday there was food leftover from a portfolio review lunch, and it was all spread out in the kitchen area on a very long bar. None of it really looked that good, because it had been pawed through, and the squares of sandwiches were coming apart with limp lettuce and mealy tomato slices were strewn about. But it sure did smell good. I felt like Grenouille in The Perfume, because I could separate out each separate odor: cheddar cheese, mustard, yeasty bread, chocolate from the various cookies and brownies.

I'm not saying never to greasy breakfast sandwiches, cheese, bread and chocolate. I just can't have it every stinkin' day, unfortunately, and not gain weight.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Eating Crow

9 months. That's the time it takes for someone to have a baby. Not that I did, because I didn't. It's also the time it took for my experiments in intuitive eating and just getting exercise from trying to be more active in my daily life--some of you may remember me touting this approach here and in the comments section of your own blogs--to reveal themselves to be complete failures. It's the time it took for me to gain about 20 pounds, give or take. Seems when I eat intuitively, I eat a lot of ice cream.

I hadn't weighed myself since sometime last spring, I think. A couple of days ago, I was alone in the apartment and things were quiet, and I got curious. So I blew the cat hair off the scale and hopped on.

184.5 it read.

184.5 lbs at 5 feet, 5 inches tall.

Not quite my all-time high, but very close.

And it wasn't that much of a surprise. I had suspected as much. I had to buy a fancy dress for an upcoming work party recently, which required measuring myself. I had to measure my waist three times before it sunk in that yes, that's how big my waist is, and no, you can't order a size 12, because it won't fit.

Also, my skin has been itching on my hips and thighs, and I knew it wasn't because of the cold weather. For me, when my skin starts itching on my hips and thighs, it means my weight is changing. It also means new stretchmarks.

I quit my old gym quite a while ago--a year ago or maybe more--but ended up joining a new one this summer, because I thought I could go back to a gym finally and not get so obsessed with it. And that's proven true. Far from getting obsessed, I've hardly been there at all.

I have also let the yoga, which I was doing pretty much daily there for about six months, slide to about once every two weeks. Maybe. I am still wearing my little silver lotus/om pendant that I bought during my yoga heyday, if that counts for anything. I would like to get back to regular practice, because it makes me feel better.

The yoga slippage has largely been because of a new, asskicking kickass job. I love the job. But it is demanding. Much more so than my old one. I'm often at work late. And usually when I'm at work, it requires my full brain capacity to do my job.

The new job may also have a bit to do with the wolfing down of large portions of food at meals at an astonishingly fast pace.

But things have begun to settle down a bit at work, enough so that over the last few weeks, I've managed to start going to the gym regularly, about three times a week. I'm on week 3 of Couch to 5K, which I started just to have something to do when I go to the gym. So far, so good. It feels neither obsessive, nor boring.

Foodwise, I need to get a grip, and not on a pint of ice cream. My plan is to go back to what was working before I size-acceptanced, feminist-theoried, and intuitively ate myself into a 20lb weight gain. Cut out the white stuff for the most part--especially sugar, oh lordy, the sugar--and focus on lean proteins and vegetables and whole grains.

Also, I will get back to posting here regularly. I've missed it. And It helps, somehow.