Having a moment

Well, I cheated. Many times. Who's surprised?

Arg. I am mad at myself, but when I wasn't cheating, I was mad at myself, too, because I was in mourning. The thought of no treats for 52 days really messed with my mind, so I ended up giving in, again and again.

But today, I'm not mad anymore. I woke up with the realization that I may seem like a fat, lazy person, but that's only because I've been acting like a fat, lazy person. I've been reflecting, Cady Heron style, I guess.

I'm not a fat, lazy person. I am a responsible, healthy person. Yes, I like my sweets, but liking sweets and having initiative/being healthy are not mutually exclusive.

So I'm going to be a responsible, healthy person who eats healthy food 90% of the time.

That's what I think today, anyway.

Hard Day!

My confidence in whether I could do this definitely faltered today. I guess I know I can, but I second guessed my need to do it. Stress makes me crave like crazy and I worried I would cave somehow. The good news is that I don't have any of my favorite junk in the house and I was able to make it through. It's going to be a grumpy week.

Oh, and my husband is also really stressed, which makes him LOSE weight. Not fair.

1 day down, 51 days to go.

This is hard. And I'm lazy, to boot.

Here's my life for the past month: sinus infection, appendicitis, family death/funeral, sinus infection.

You guys, I do not feel good. Like, at all. Being sick and having surgery and dealing with insurance then getting sick again...it's enough to make a girl kind of depressed.

And let me tell you, too. I'm pretty sure I get man colds. Because I am a total wimp when it comes to eating well when I'm sick. I will live on convenience foods rather than exert the brain power and energy needed to put together a decent meal. When I had appendicitis, I had actually just gone to the store, and a lot of my healthy food just went bad in the fridge. Part of that was that I wasn't cooking, because my incredible neighbors kept us fed for a whole week.

But now, I feel guilt and ick and shame about my bad food choices.

The plan was to get back on the horse today. 

Didn't quite happen.

But then.

I was on Facebook, as I am wont to do during the day. I saw a post from someone (and now I'm thinking this maybe happened yesterday?) on one of my healthy lifestyle groups who is on a strict diet for some medical issues she has. She went 51 days without cheating AT ALL. It started to kind of get to her that she couldn't have her favorite naughty foods, so on day 52 she had a cheat meal. It got her thinking, "ok, I did 51 days. Now can I do 52 days? And recruit some other people to do it with me?" And the group admin said she'd do it, and asked others to do it "please with sugar on top!" To which I replied, "well, if there's sugar on top...," because I use smart-assery as a defense mechanism, and before I knew it, I had signed up for 52 days of clean living. I also think I volunteered for 5 days of exercising a week.

I really want to do this, for two reasons.

First, my health/weight. I have got to get rid of these sicknesses and I've got to detox my body of all these terrible things I eat. I've just got to. I'm not a kid anymore and I want to be healthy for my own kids. Plus, especially if I have a daughter one day, I do NOT, repeat DO NOT want to pass my body issues and my emotional eating issues on to her.

Second, I feel like I often say I'll do something, then I don't. This is with dieting and a lot of other things. It bothers me that I just can't do what I said I would do, more consistently. It bothers me when other people don't have the integrity to stick to their plans, yet, I do it so often.

I have a couple friends doing this with me, and I really want to do it. So...I'm going to do it.

The way it's set up is that you just stick to whatever diet you're doing without cheating. So for me, it's basically the South Beach Diet. I think I'll do Jillian Michaels DVDs and then walk/run outside or on our treadmill for exercise. 

I want to get to the point that I get a high from turning down junk food.

I want to get to a point where I try on clothes for fun. I haven't done that in four years.

I want to look good and be confident for my husband.

I want to look back on each day and be happy with the choices I made, especially when they're not easy.

(I weighed 161 today. The other day I was 158, which is as low as I've been since I was like 18 weeks pregnant.)

"Sugar Day." Virtue or Vice?

My husband is very supportive and doesn't eat sugar all week. Then on Saturday, he has "sugar day." Of course I've been participating. This week's sugar day included Lehi Bakery doughnuts for breakfast, then Cafe Rio for dinner followed by a Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcake. It was a bit much. I loved it, but it was a lot.

I didn't even weigh myself yesterday. Yesterday, I was on the straight and narrow, and am committed to staying there until I lose my next 10 pounds, which will put me at my pre-pregnancy weight.

Anyway, this morning I was at my normal weight. The past two weeks, I have not been strict with myself at all with the diet. I haven't gained weight, but I haven't lost, either. I'm hoping that now that I'm back and focused, the weight will start coming off again. I think going 10 pounds at a time is the right pace for me. Telling myself that I just have to lose 10 pounds, then doing that over and over again with breaks in between.

I really wish my baby would sleep through the night. Last night he woke up three times, his norm. Being up with him for only the 15 minutes it takes to change and feed him might not seem like a big deal, but it really does take a lot longer than that when all's said and done. First, I wake up to him crying. I wait a few minutes to see if he will go back to sleep (my feeble attempt at sleep training). Then I go in his room, change him if I think he needs it, feed him for 10 minutes or so, then put him back in his bed. Sometimes I need to go to the bathroom, and if I changed him then I definitely wash my hands, then I go back to bed myself and try to fall back to sleep. I'm not laying there long before I drift back off, but some nights I'm not asleep long enough to complete a full sleep cycle until 5 or 6 am. That was the case last night. I have gotten to the point that I try to take naps while the boys both sleep during the day, but I can rarely make it work.

I guess what I'm saying is, if I got enough sleep, I think I would have more energy and focus. I would be able to go to the gym in the mornings. I could go to the gym in the mornings now, but I am just not willing to give up my best 2-3 hours of sleep of the day in order to do it.

Anyway. Off to face the day. Wish me luck.

Stress!

Ugh, stress eating. I get nervous about completing a work assignment or a conversation I need to have with someone, and I am totally paralyzed. Procrastinating the task at hand and stress eating like crazy! I don't know how to make it stop, which stresses me out even more. I hate feeling out of control.

Boy am I lucky

160.6! Less than a pound above what I need to be, thank goodness! I find it so motivating when I weigh even just a little less than I expect. I expected today to weigh 162, just like last week, because of all the comfort food I've been eating. So this is exciting and I'm completely confident that I'll be safely nestled in the 150s next week at weigh-in.

Breathing a sigh of relief.

Why is this so hard?

Of course, if it were easy, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great.

I have had a super intense sinus infection for about 10 days. Today I feel like I'm starting to get better. We'll see. If I'm not close to 100% by Wednesday, I'm going to get some antibiotics, because this is just miserable. Ugh.

I've learned that when I'm sick, I eat like crap, which undoubtedly extends my period of sickness. (As much as the "organic" "clean" "whole" food movement irks me, I do believe it. Shh...I totally buy into the idea that food can be our greatest medicine or poison. Do I act on that idea? That's another topic and one that I'll probably need some therapy to reconcile, for real.)

Anyway, eating bad while sickness. I think I do this for two reasons. One to self-medicate, and the other is that bad food is just easier to grab and prepare. I mean, if I have no energy and my whole face is pounding with sinus pain, am I going to broil and weigh talapia, then wash, chop and weigh vegetables to make a very nutritious salad, or am I going to microwave a burrito from the freezer? Duh. Healthy eating is work and it takes preparation.

But, today, I am back on the train. I have to be. I just looked at the schedule in my post below, and while I will most likely be a pound or two heavier than I'm supposed to be this Wednesday, I won't be too far off. I feel that my goals are still completely attainable. I also noticed that on February 19th, which is the exact day that Blake turns 6 months old, I am scheduled to be at my pre-pregnancy weight, which is AMAZING. Getting to that weight after Jameson was born took me a full year.

I'm ready to go. I'm envisioning myself at 135 pounds, just in time for Spring, full of energy and proud of the hard work that went in to achieving my goal.

Hi Me, It's Me Again

Back with more baby weight losing adventures.

I mean, Blake was worth it. Sure. And the fatter he gets, the cuter he is. Me, not so much.

So I'm on a low carb diet. Like South Beach Phase 1 all the time, but with portion restrictions. It's no joke. It kicks my butt.

I cheat almost every day, but I've still lost 7 pounds in 6 days.

I was feeling really good and getting the hang of it on day 4 and 5, but then today I made cookies for a neighbor whose daughter was sick and in the hospital. I ate one four and I feel so gross. Sick to my stomach. It was not worth it!

Next time I want to eat junk, I need to remember this feeling. It is not worth it.

My initial concern with the diet was that I wouldn't be eating enough calories and I would lose my milk. I think it did go down in the beginning, but I think my body is starting to trust me again and milk production seems to be fine again. Thank goodness.

After this week, I should lose about 2 pounds a week. From my starting weight, I need to lose 36 pounds. Because I want to be at my wedding weight. I still have never gotten to the Liz Lemon 127 mark, but I felt fantastic with my size on my wedding day, so let's just go back there. Here's my ideal timeline:

Jan 1: 171
Jan 8: 163
Jan 15: 161
Jan 22: 159
Jan 29 157
Feb 5: 155
Feb 12: 153
Feb 19: 151
Feb 26: 149
March 5: 147
March 12: 145
March 19: 143
March 26: 141
April 2: 139
April 9: 137
April 16: 135

Then maintain forever. ha.

Think of it this way. If you are at your wedding weight next time you get pregnant, then gain 36 pounds during the pregnancy, you would weigh at delivery what you weighed on Day 1.

I really want this. It has to happen.

I will achieve it by making every day count. I think people say that a lot and don't really think about what it means. To me, this means waking up with purpose every single day with objectives and plans. I am not nearly Type A as I need to be right now. My house is very disorganized, I am behind on my scripture reading, and my kids don't have a firm schedule. Even my weekly housekeeping schedule has gone out the window. It's time to get cracking. It's time to be disciplined.

Which brings me to my motto of 2014:

It's ok to care. It's good to care, actually. I'm going to care every day and not make it any secret that I'm trying. I want to try so hard that I'm tired at night from all the trying. I want to try so hard that when I mess up, it's ok because I know I'm trying. I want to close each day of this year knowing that I acted like I gave a damn that day.

Let's go!

Well hello there, me.

I'm ba-ack!

So I lost my first ten pounds by the end of May, bringing me to 159. Have been stagnant ever since, but I joined Weight Watchers three weeks ago and I have been slowly, I mean SO SLOWLY, begun to lose again. I'm talking 156 on a good day.

I am watching Chris Powell guest hosting on Dr. Oz, and he says that a weight loss goal should be SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-sensitive (urgency!).

He says you should divide your current weight and divide by 100 to get the number of pounds you should be able to lose each week. That is 1.5 pounds a week, so I guess I am doing ok.

I'm not exercising right now. I got rid of my gym membership in favor of the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. It was ok, but now I am burnt out on it and want to get a real gym membership with child care.

Chris Powell is also saying that you should alternate high carb days with low carb days. On high carb days, a meal should have one protein, one carb and as many vegetables as you can eat during a high carb day. Then on low carb days, you still have a high-carb breakfast. On the high carb day, you are boosting metabolism, then on the low carb day you are burning fat. On the seventh day you eat whatever you want! There's a sabbath day to this whole thing.

He said only eat junk outside your house. Don't keep it around.

We just went to visit my parents and I did do a lot of mindless eating, so now I am trying to get back working toward good habits like I was before.

So here are my SMART goals:

Get back to 139 pounds and be able to run 3 miles without stopping before my birthday.

That's 17 pounds to go.

no weight loss in week 2.

well, despite being better about working out this past week, i didn't lose any weight. in fact i am 166.4 when last week i was 166.2.

i was prepared for this and i'm not upset. i know that a consistent effort over time will get me where i need to be.

i did a pretty good job at journaling my eating last week, but i wasn't counting calories at all. just kind of "eye-balling" it and allowing myself lots of little things here and there that really add up.

to reach my goal weight by october 1, which i really want to do so by the holidays i'm in maintenance mode and not still trying to lose, i'll need to start losing 2 pounds each week and sticking to right about 1200 calories a day. this is an intense daily calorie goal that will require creativity and super-mega discipline. i will need to become the girl who says no to treats even if it's kind of socially awkward to do so. i will need to become the girl who says "i already ate" when invited out to eat. it's going to require sneaking in as much exercise as possible. like jillian michaels during nap time AND a solid sweat sesh at the gym later that day.

Calorie Count

i just joined caloriecount.com. it tracks all your calories and key nutrients and has tools to find bmi, bmr, help you track your goals, a place to journal, etc. my mom uses it and really likes it, and so far it seems really helpful.

this is what it says about emotional eating (here):

You use food to affect your mood. This started as a conscious way to motivate yourself when you needed it, but then it became your second nature and turned into an unconscious method of dealing with problems.

Your Eating Habits

You are familiar with sweets, such as cookies, ice cream, cakes, waffles and other carb-loaded diet killers. They somehow creep into your diet whenever you need a little bit of moral support, or when you feel frustrated, unhappy or simply bored. Therefore, those excess calories are not consumed during your regular meals, but in between.

The Solution

Emotional cravings are easily confused with hunger and are therefore difficult to identify. In most cases, emotional eating patterns only become evident when they have already taken place. Therefore, emotional eaters should plan their meals ahead, and always have a clear idea how much they want to consume. This makes any deviations clearly recognizable and allows the user to find alternate and non-food related methods for dealing with emotions.

I love the solution it offers. this is something i can work into the organized life i am trying to have. this is something i have already been trying to do, too, as far as giving myself a little pep talk before eating, where i talk to myself about how much i should eat and strategies for not blowing my goals.

one thing i am trying to figure out

ok, i'm trying to figure out a lot of things. obviously.

but, one thing that really bugs me about myself is my tendency to binge when i'm unhappy with my weight loss progress.

it's seems so counter intuitive, right? "i'm not losing weight fast enough so i'm going to eat more crap food."

*sigh*

i do this more than i'd like to admit.

i got the itch again today. i wanted to go out an get a cupcake. i drive by the cupcake place on my way to the gym every day and today i was thinking if i was good all day, i could go get a cupcake in the afternoon.

well. then i weighed myself and i haven't lost any weight since monday. i know that was only two days ago, but for some reason this made me furious and i wanted to eat everything. in. sight.

luckily i had the presence of mind to stop myself, but why did i want to do that?

is it just because i'm thinking, "well i obviously am incapable of losing weight so i might as well eat what i like."

or does the letdown of my slow progress make me reach for the junk food because the short rush of sugar makes me feel happy, if only for a minute?

i honestly don't know. i don't know if it is just a psychological reaction or part of a chemical addiction to food.

i think a lot of women have these tendencies, but i don't think we ALL do. and i don't think we HAVE to.

i don't have an answer right now. just something i have noticed and have been thinking about lately.

720 calories in an hour.

Oh baby, I've still got it!

I got on the treadmill last night with my usual goal of 600 calories in an hour. I noticed when I kicked up the incline a little, I would exceed my goal.

So what did I do? I kicked it up a little more to make my goal an even 700. By the time 60 minutes was up, I had burned about 710, then I needed a little cool down because I was REALLY booking it. that brought me to 720.

I play a little game with myself on the treadmill. 10 calories a minute is "on schedule." So after 15 minutes, I should burn 150 calories to stay on schedule. Anything more than that is just a bonus.

I'm going tonight again and I want to burn 720 in the 60 minutes. Notch it up a bit each time.

Things are going pretty well with my food journal. I think I'm ready to go beyond just writing things down, to cleaning up my diet a little bit. My diet isn't terrible, but I have room to improve.

via

workout setback

so i mentioned last week how excited i am to be back at the gym. last monday i went for the first time and could tell i got a little blister but didn't think much of it.

i went again on tuesday and when i got home, the whole heel of my sock was soaked in blood.

it hurt so bad!

i tried to work out on it on thursday but it hurt so bad, i only got about 20 minutes of cardio in. so frustrating. i had told tiffany that i'd want her to watch jameson on friday and i cancelled. i felt like a failure and that i was making excuses. it was disappointing.

bought new shoes, ended up being too big, so i took them and exchanged them today...here's hoping to a better workout week! my blister is good enough healed and i think my new shoes will work. yay!

week one weigh in

today i weigh 166.2. That's a loss of 3.6 pounds or 2.12% of my total body weight. Mark beat me this week (and maybe Matt and Christy will too), but I'm smaller.

if i were one to count my chickens before they're hatched, i would conclude that i can lose 40 pounds in under 4 months at this rate. i don't know if that will happen. i'm getting to my goal weight by respecting myself and by healing my relationship with food, and if that takes till christmas, it takes till christmas. if it takes till our anniversary, ok. (i mean obviously hopefully it won't)

i feel great about this first week, and i feel like there is a lot of room to ramp up my workouts and tighten up my diet in the future when i plateau. good news.

i plugged my stats into livestrong.com today and found out that my daily caloric target to lose 2 pounds this week is 1392.

Sunday, Sunday Sunday.

Sunday is a tricky day. Real tricky. With the exception of three hours of church, you're pretty much home all day and can't really do a lot of work activities that comprise the rest of the week, so I tend to eat all day. Bad news when you're trying to lose weight. But an excellent case study in mindful eating.

So today was fast Sunday, which meant no eating till dinner. This helped me a lot. I prepared a lean pork loin roast with stir-fry vegetables and brown rice. I had a reasonable portion, maybe a little big, but not ridiculous. I was full afterward but not stuffed.

Then we decided to start a new tradition for our Sunday treat. I love to bake and I want to still be able to do that regularly. So we decided that I could bake on Sunday, then Mark and I would determine on our own how much of the dessert we wanted. We could eat it all on Sunday or save it. It's up to us. Then once we portion that out, we'll take the rest to a neighbor (or two, depending on how much left over we have). We did it tonight and so far, so good. It will give purpose to our Sunday night walks and help us get to know neighbors better. For the record, we each kept three cookies. Mark at all of his tonight. I ate one tonight and am saving the others for a time when I really "need" a cookie.

Our first weigh in is tomorrow morning. I cheated and weighed myself this morning and I was down almost three pounds. I would be thrilled to reach the three pound mark tomorrow, but we will just see. If I don't hit it, I won't be upset. Slow weight loss is fine, as long as it's coming down, I'm eating more nutritiously and I'm addressing my relationship with food.

little breakthroughs all around.

yesterday at a family dinner, i decided to eat mindfully ahead of time and i'm so glad that i stuck to this. i had one reasonable portion of the dinner, one small strawberry shortcake and one small piece of berry coffee cake. i should have skipped that altogether. BUT, a huge plate of it was sitting next to me all night and i didn't eat any more. big deal.

today, mark and i went to olive garden. walking in the door, i was trying to form a bread stick strategy. how many should i eat? i told myself i could have one, no more than two. then the waiter brought out the salad and bread and i instead thought i would just wait for mark to have one before i had one. he never did, so i didn't either. then before i knew it, i didn't even care about the bread. i was talking to mark and people watching and not so focused on wolfing down all edibles within arms' reach. and i had less than half of my entree and i was full. in the car afterward, i had one andes mint. there were 3 of them, and i just had one.

i think that i am getting better about eating purposefully. i'm getting better about thinking about what i eat before i eat it and not just eating for something to do.

Let yourself be grumpy!

Losing weight is hard because it's work.

Work is work! Losing weight is a job. It isn't always fun and it's sometimes tedious and tiresome and you wonder if you're making a difference.

But you have to keep at it.

I need to remember this every day. I might be grumpy. And that doesn't mean I need to coddle myself or give in! It means I need an attitude adjustment and probably a glass of water.

my purpose.

so we know it is time for me to lose weight, because i can't fit into any of my clothes and i am technically "overweight." but i've been really thinking lately about why i'm ACTUALLY doing this.

lots of people are technically overweight, after all. i could just buy bigger clothes and that would be that.

but i'm not going to do that.

i'm doing this for a couple reasons. one is that i feel disgusting and i miss "me."

another is that even when i was thinner, i never quite got to where i wanted to be. i've dreamed of the 120s for years. I have never been there as an adult, with the exception of a few weeks one summer in college when i hardly ever ate. literally, i would go a day or so without anything. having too much fun i guess? i don't know.

the actual 127 number comes from 30 rock. it's so silly, but that's the truth and i want to be totally honest here. on the 30 rock pilot, jack guesses liz's weight as 127 pounds and he's right. i think that number is supposed to be chubby, which is kind of sad. so that's how i got the number. plus i love the number 27. always have.

anyway, another reason i want to do this (1. feel disgusting and 2. never have reached my goal weight before) is to have healthier subsequent pregnancies and not have losing the weight be such a huge ordeal.

i know that losing baby weight is going to always be a challenge. it's just how it goes. but with this first pregnancy, i didn't exercise and i ate whatever i wanted, whenever i wanted. i also started out the pregnancy at 144 pounds, which is 6 pounds heavier than my set point of 138 that i can easily maintain if i'm getting regular exercise and being somewhat careful about what i eat. when jameson was born, i weighed 190, give or take. that's a 46 pound weight gain and so far i have only been able to lose 21 pounds of it.

think about it: if i started the next pregnancy at 127 and then gained the recommended 25-30 pounds, that would put me between 152 and 157 - only 8 pounds higher than my starting weight for my first pregnancy! coming home from the hospital and shrinking easily below 150 in the first two weeks of my baby's life sounds wonderful. imagine how much less stress i would have about losing weight!

to loosely paraphrase ronald regan, "i know it's a hell of a challenge, but i ask myself: if not me, who? if not now, when?"