Still Alive and Kicking

I'm still here. Still crazy busy. I'll be traveling again for work this coming week, and may be headed to Europe for work the following week or week after. Still not sure. 

On the smoking front, I think I have finally made up my mind to quit. It is making me feel horrible, and my asthma has been kicking up. So yesterday I went and bought some nicotine gum. I used the patch when I quit before, and I didn't like it. Made my bones ache wherever I put the patch. And I don't actually smoke all that much comparatively (been averaging 5 to 10 a day), though I could certainly end up being a heavy smoker again (I once did two packs a day, about ten years ago when I was going through a divorce and was still in grad school), so the patch, even the lowest dose, would be too much. I'm planning to split the gum pieces in half. I haven't actually needed one yet, because I've been tending not to really smoke on the weekends, just at work.

Eating has been ok. I've felt like I've been a little bit sugar nibbly, but the scale has stayed consistently around 152-153. Will just have to watch it as I go off the smokes that I don't substitute that with constant eating.

The weather is warmer finally, so I've been walking more. And my two art classes I was taking this semester are winding up. The painting class is done. The drawing class only has two more sessions, one of which I'll miss this week because of traveling. Am not sure if I'll take anything this summer, but I should, even if I do take one, have more time to fit in some yoga. My gym membership is about to expire, and I'm not planning to renew. There are only so many hours in the day, and I am not interested in spending any of the free ones I have at the gym. Outside doing something, yes.  A yoga class, yes. But the gym, absolutely not.

So. Tired.

I have no idea how much I weigh. Eating hasn't been bad, but smoking has. I keep telling myself I need to quit, have to quit, and then there I am in the middle of an anxious moment, headed downstairs and across the street to the deli where I slap a ten dollar bill on the counter and the man gives me my pack of cigarettes. It is making me feel worse, I know. But I am unable to stop right now on my own. It's the nicotine, of course, because I'm clearly addicted to it again, but it's the idea of not being able to go downstairs and hangout for a bit with the other smokers that is causing me not to quit. It's a crutch and I hate it. 

The last week was a blur. Work seems to be never-ending. I actually have to do some work tomorrow. 

Today I could only manage to read a little and nap.

I am too old for this shit.

Bleah

Weight this morning: 152.

That's lower than I've been in about 10 years. 

I'm in an eating funk these days. Nothing looks good. I've been doing a lot of reading about Buddhism, and just as when I was doing yoga regularly (which I really still want to get back to), I am finding myself squicked out by meat, poultry, and even fish, and I looooove sushi, but the thought of it right now turns my stomach. 

This means a lot of my go-tos for lunch are out of consideration until if and when my ickedoutness over meat, poultry and fish disappears or diminishes.

I stand in the places I usually go to pick up lunch and just think bleah.

This has forced me to go to some different places. I discovered a whole foodie deli near the office, and I had a good roasted red pepper hummus sandwich on wheat and fruit salad from there for lunch yesterday.

There is also a sort of fast-food type veggie place that serves veggie burgers and faux chicken nuggets and the like. I might give them a try next week.

I may also have to get over my inner rebellion against those salad bar places that mix the salad for you as you go down the line and pick what you want on there.

Or horror of horrors, I may just have to start--GASP--packing my own lunch!

Am going to be travelling for work this coming week, so won't be around much.

Wishing all a good weekend.

Finding it Again, Though It's a Bit Different

So, I was down another pound this morning: 153.

I have still been unable to get myself back to tracking in Sparkpeople, though I am weighing again regularly. I'll start out tracking breakfast, but then I kind of know, because I tend to eat the same things all the time, what the rest of them are for the day, so I just don't enter them. It seems to be working ok, but I get all superstitious and think, well, I lost so much by tracking and if I don't continue to track every. single. morsel. I will start gaining weight.

But seriously, when I think about what I was eating when I was in the 180's, and what I'd eaten to get there, it's just nowhere close to now. 

Back then, I was doing intuitive eating, you see, and here's how I ate intuitively:

I'd eat breakfast at home, back then, stop for a latte (nonfat of course) at SBs on the way to work and oooh, look at those bran muffins as big as my head with the raisins I love raisins and well ok I'm doing intuitive eating and I want one of those and even though I am still full from what I ate at home I don't want to deny myself anything so I'll take one of those. I'd get to my desk, suck down the latte and inhale the muffin. Lunch would be some kind of giant sandwich with prosciutto and mozzarella or roast beef and cheddar on beautiful bread and I would eat the whole stinkin' thing (I might manage a quarter of one of them now) and then have some fruit salad (healthy!) or a cookie as big as my head, because, well I don't want to deny myself. And then in the afternoon a handful or two of dark chocolate covered almonds that they have a dispenser for over in the kitchen area of the office. After work, if The Husband and I weren't going out to dinner, where I'd eat whatever I wanted, with french fries, thank you, because I don't want to deny myself, I'd meet a friend for dinner at a restaurant and a drink or two or three or four. I'd wake up the next day and repeat.

I think that I fear that if I let up, I will slide back to the above, and I really do not want to be in that place again. Ever.

So, I may not necessarily be needing to track every single thing, but I feel like I have to be aware if I start lying to myself like I was doing before with the intuitive eating.

I wasn't weighing myself then, though.

So I think using the scale to keep myself honest is a good thing, and easing up on the tracking every bite of every meal might not be a bad thing.

Looking for My Lost Weight Loss Mojo

I seem to have lost my momentum.

I have been lazy about tracking. And I've been slacking off on weighing because I've been lazy about tracking and have also been having that "feeling fat" thing, which I know is not really about fat and as I found this morning when I actually did get on the scale was way off the mark because I've actually lost a pound from goal.

This morning I was at 154.

I do need to find that momentum, motivation, whatchacallit, because I know how I am, and not tracking and avoiding the scale and generally eating whatever I want all the time, damn the consequences is how I end up back in the 180s and in tight size 14s.

I have new spring clothes I haven't even gotten to wear yet, after all, that are in my new smaller size.

And I bought new bras. Very expensive new bras.

Are you listening self? I'm trying to reason with you right now.