I see, once again, that it is not magic. It's just doing the same old, same old, every day, day after day. That's what adds up to change, not herculean efforts that last a few days or a few weeks. It's a long haul and sometimes it's boring. So what? If I want to change, it's the same things that get me there.
I see it as macro and micro choices/efforts. The macro is choosing a general exercise plan, deciding what workout to do today and then doing it. The macro is also choosing a general eating plan, deciding what meals to eat today and then making and eating them. The general plans are the foundation of the house and the workouts/meals are the framework.
The micro choices are the millions of small choices that I make every day that add up over time. It is the extra bites when I am making dinner or cleaning up, it is the half a piece of toast or a bite of doughnut and so on. These things are really challenging to me. It's interesting 'cause I tend to spend money that way too. I give a lot of consideration to spending $1000 or more but boy, I can nickel and dime us to death--a couple of books here, a few trinkets there. Over the month, it adds up and up and up, just the way those extra calories do.
The other micro choices relate to all the incidental movement I could do over a day. This is going to the bathroom one floor up at work instead of the one on the same floor as my office. It's probably less than a minute or two difference but over a year? It adds up. It's lying down to watch television instead of sitting up and doing some knitting or other busywork. It's the difference in calories burned sitting at the computer or standing and doing the dishes.
The micro choices are the walls of the house, made up of small increments, like bricks maybe. They don't make the dramatic change that putting up a framework makes. They add up slowly and I can miss the adding up until, holy cow, I've put on another five pounds OR lost another five pounds. They can undo me but they can also make the difference, because they are so much easier to build into a busy life.
I know I have a tendency to greatly undervalue the micro choices. My logical mind KNOWS that they make a big difference but even as I am writing this, there is another voice that's whispering, "Ah, but big deal. How is this little thing going to help/hurt?"
I think I have always held that secret opinion and I think the problem is--when I was twenty or thirty, I could get away with it. I could ignore the micro choices and just do a little longer workout and burn it off. I was always active, always had regular workouts. I think it was all those micro choices that added up to five pounds here, five pounds there, creeping up ten pounds a decade and now creeping up faster than that. As I carry more weight, the regularly scheduled workouts become harder to do, I get discouraged easier and tire faster so guess what? Those regular workouts that I counted on to keep the weight wolf from the door have become shorter, less intense, less frequent which just speeds up the whole cycle of weight gain and loss of fitness.
I also know that when I was younger, I could be really good about my eating habits for a few days and see the results on the scale. No longer. I have to work at it longer and the lack of immediate feedback and payoff is a problem for me.
Anyway, to come back to the beginning--it's not magic. I keep thinking that I should hire a personal trainer, that I should try some appetite suppressants, that I should get some acupuncture or try Jenny Craig or see a nutritionist or buy a new book. But inside, I know that none of that will really help unless I can muster the...what? willpower? commitment? whatever it is to keep on doing it. None of those things will make a difference long term. They might get me going but it's kind of like waiting for the knight in shining armour. As Scott Peck said, there is no one coming to save me. I'm the only one who can do it. And it's as simple as making the choice, every day, every hour, every minute, that my life is worth it, that I want it enough.
I don't have much in the way of wisdom, so here's from someone else:
"In the last four months I've lost 25 pounds. Every time someone asks how I did it, I have to think about my reply. Do I give them the simple answer, the one that answers the question but doesn't really help them ("The South Beach Diet") or do I tell them the truth? Most people who ask are hoping I will say there is a magic pill they can take to help them lose ten pounds in ten days (!). They don't want to hear the real answer. But just in case there is someone out there who does, here is the truth: there are certain things, difficult things, that you have to accept in order to lose weight. These are the hard truths of weight loss:
Weight loss takes time. If you're still looking for a quick fix, then you're not ready for real, long-term weight loss. It took quite a while to gain weight and it's going to take just as long or longer to come off. Understanding that this takes time and patience is half the battle.
There's no such thing as a temporary diet. I started with the South Beach Diet and, although I've made some minor changes since, that's pretty much how I still eat. It works for me because the good carbs fill me up, meaning I'm never hungry, because if I'm hungry, all bets are off! But whatever you choose, make sure you can maintain it far into the future. The problem with quick fix diets, aside from the fact that they don't always work, is that they don't teach you how to eat after you'ver stopped following them. And long term is the key. You have to eat properly for the rest of your life. The knowledge that you are always going to have to second guess that Big Mac or piece of cheesecake can be a scary thing to accept. That's not to say that you can't have treats on occasion but to maintain your weight loss, you're always going to have to weigh the good and the bad--cheesecake now means veggies for dinner, for example. This is forever. Period.
You have to be aware of calories. It's annoying to hear this but the experts are right: weight loss equals calories in minus calories out. It doesn't matter what diet you choose, you can't escape this so just embrace it. Even on diets like South Beach that don't call for counting calories, you still have to be aware of your portion sizes.
People are going to try to bring you down. Accept it and learn to ignore it. As my mom always told me, "Close the doors on your ears." People will say all sorts of crazy, unhelpful and sometimes downright mean things to you when you are losing weight, things like, "Oh, you can have this piece of pizza; it won't hurt you." Maybe it will, maybe it won't; only you can decide. In order to be successful at weight loss, you have to disregard everyone who comments about the way you eat, how much you have lost, how you look and whether you need to lose weight at all.
You need support. If you're lucky, you'll get support at home but I've found that's not enough. My husband is too nice to me--he is very supportive of my weight loss but when I'm in a bad mood and whining that I want ice cream, more often than not he goes to get it! So I also have a group of online friends doing this with me. We check in every day and if I gorge on ice cream too often, they will let me know what they think about it and that knowledge alone is often enough to prevent me from eating it.
Exercise is too important to make excuses about. But the good news is that it doesn't have to be fancy and you don't have to kill yourself with it. Currently my exercise consists of a one-mile walk every evening. Eventually I'll probably work up to something else but for now this is enough. Don't waste time worrying about how you're going to exercise--just get moving.
The only obstacle to losing weight is YOU. Yes, that's harsh but it must be faced. Every single piece of food you put in your mouth is your choice. I know first hand how much cravings can bring you down and how tempting it is to just go for it when you're out with friends. And sometimes I do go for it but I always remind myself that if the scale goes up, I have no to blame but myself. And every time I say no and the scale goes down, I have no one to reward but myself. It all comes down to you."
This article REALLY hits some with me today, especially the last point. Hope you all are having a good day/week/month.
I woke up this morning with that sick, desperate feeling again, that kind of revulsion from looking at what I am doing to myself. I got no exercise at all this weekend, just sat around watching television and eating. I am gaining back what I lost and am feeling the effects, internally and externally, feeling sick and bloated and uncomfortable. And I just don't know how to stop it.
It seems like madness. It seems so crazy to know, without a doubt, what would make me happy (or at least happier), healthier, what would give me some enthusiasm for the day and my life in general and yet continue to not do it. I can't explain it; I have never been able to figure this out. I seem like a sailboat with no wind at all and no motor, like I am just paralyzed, motionless, drifting. I KNOW I could just get up, just get right up, just get up and walk out that door and go for a walk or go to the gym or work in the garden, or cut up some vegetables and eat them instead of an all-day-long graze of nothing but starches. I know what would work but I don't do it. Day after day after day, I don't do it.
It is a blow to my pride to be so out of shape. Once upon a time, I was a certified fitness instructor (I can't even use ignorance as an excuse!). Once upon a time I found that I was usually among the fitter people in any gathering I found myself in; I didnt' worry about whether or not I would be able to keep up. I was confident that I could handle most anything that life would throw at me. Not anymore. I don't have any confidence in my ability to handle anything anymore. I look forward (about 5 years) to when I could consider retirement and even though I would really like to get away from work, I fear that I would turn into a recluse and eat myself into oblivion.
I find it devastating to look at past pictures of myself. I barely recognize that younger woman; she is like someone else, someone I vaguely remember. My husband is great, always supportive, always loving but I feel like such a disappointment, to him and to me. He never makes me feel that way but *I* make me feel that way. I sometimes wonder why he would want to stay with me.
I guess I am probably being too hard on myself but boy, it is so hard for me not to sink into the muck of self-loathing.
Okay, taking stock today: I can see that one of the worst things for me on the weekend is to not stick to regular mealtimes. I put off breakfast and that starts a whole cascade effect that ends up with no proper meals, just ongoing snacking on things that are not good for me.
I am racking my brain to see if I can think of someone who might be willing to meet me on Saturday mornings to go for a walk and then go to the gym after. I usually work out by myself but I am hoping that if I have someone else waiting for me, I will be more likely to go. Maybe I could even get a personal trainer for one of the weekend mornings; the money would certainly be worth it if it got me going again.
And of course, I have to take the time to weigh, measure and write down everything I am eating. I have proven to myself again and again that I always underestimate the amount that I am eating unless I see it in black and white. So I don't think there is any way for me to get around this.
I just don't want to go on feeling this way, so hopeless, so defeated. I guess I am taking baby steps and trying to get one day under my belt, just one whole day of doing well.
Just wanted to thank everyone for their posts and concern. I am still out here. I've been way off track since I posted last. Every time I thought about trying to posting something, I felt like I didn't have anything to say--just the same thing, that I was falling apart and can't seem to get it back together.
I went through this in the past to, when I was going to WW. I would show up there week after week, knowing that I had not done what I needed to do and not feeling any confidence that I would do it in the following week so I finally just quit going, 'cause I thought, what's the use? It didn't seem to be helping any and, of course, it cost me every week. And then there was facing the weigh-in.
Well, one thing that is different here is that there is no cost and no weigh-in to face. And maybe the best that I can do right now is to read other people's blogs and respond to them, even if I can't find any personal experience or inspiration to share, at least for now. I can still wish everyone well and keep up on what's new in their lives! So, I'll try to get back to doing that.
I really do appreciate the lifelines that have been thrown to me. Thanks very much.
Sheesh, I've really been falling apart on the food program lately. I did a little catch-up on my documentation today, with an eye to my March goals. I wanted to stick to my program 22 out of 31 days. I have 14 days left and I'll have to stay right on target for 13 of those days in order to make my goal.
AND (duhhhhh....) in order to lose any more weight! Writing it all down is good and I am really glad that I have been doing that, without exception. It gives me a clearer idea of when and where I've been having problems but JUST writing it down isn't going to result in the pounds coming off.
Doing better with exercise, 12 out of 17 days. So if I get in another 10 days of exercise over the next 14, that meets my goal.
So, what's the problem? Part of it is that the whole idea of it isn't as fresh to me as it was when I started in February. That staleness has always been a problem for me and one that I knew I was going to have to face. It's going to take several months to get to where I want to go and I need to find out how to keep it fresh when I can and dig down for some perseverance when I can't. I need to develop the mental toughness to keep on going even when I don't feeeeeeeeeel like it.
The other problem is that I have always eaten in response to emotions, particularly when I am feeling sad or hard-done-by. I started a pretty good book awhile ago called, "Ten Things That Mess Up Women's Diets." But it's been sitting on my bedside table for a month or more and I haven't picked it up so I am going to do that today and instead of thinking that I have to read it in order, I am going to skip right to the chapter called, "I'm Moody, Let's Eat." Maybe I can get some ideas on how to handle this.
When I started, I wrote a little thing on all the reasons why I wanted to lose weight. I think I need to go back and read that a few times too, get the vision clear in my head and then make it top priority.
Feeling pretty good again. Boy, it's amazing to me to sit back and watch my moods go up and down. I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to hormones but isn't that the tricky part of it? 'Cause it might be due to more sunlight or exercise or what I ate or subconscious memories. It's enough to make me wonder if anything that I think or feel is real or just a passing hormone!
Been listening to a meditation CD lately and it starts off with noticing sounds that might be around you, the sound of a car driving by outside or people talking next door. The speaker says that we don't have to do anything with the sound, just notice it and not internalize it or think about it, just, "There's a sound. It's just a sound" and then let it pass on. And I was thinking that it's sort of like that with hormones, feelings, thoughts or, really, with anything that can knock you for a loop. SO many of the things that I could react to doesn't necessarily require a reaction. A lot of it is just the flotsam and jetsam of life floating by and I don't have to fret about it, figure it out or get involved in it. That way I can save my energy and focus for the things that really do require it.
It's even like that with cravings. Hunger will keep coming back stronger but cravings--I'm thinking that maybe I could just notice them and let them pass, like noticing a cloud that's passing over the sun. It won't last, I don't have to do anything about it.
In other news around the world, I managed to get my mangy arse out the door this morning and take the dog for a walk. Luckily, that dog keeps me from getting too far off course 'cause I feel so guilty when I don't take him out. He's only the best dog in the world and of course, deserves to get some sort of exercise every day. I know it's better for him and sometimes, when I get too lazy to do it for myself, I can do it for him. One of these days I'll figure out how to post photos to my blog and I'll post a picture of him.
Keep on pushing out on those walls that hold us back!
Went to see my doctor today to review some lab tests I got done a couple of months ago, BEFORE I started in earnest to lose some weight. Everything looks pretty good. Overall cholesterol is a bit on the high side but she said my HDL (the good cholesterol) was really excellent and the ratio is good. Thyroid function is normal and blood sugar is normal, hemoglobin is excellent. These results tell me that I can't blame the weight gain on anything but me nor can I blame general fatigue on anything but probably the work of carrying those extra 35 pounds with me wherever I was going. And I could stand to bring down the LDL a bit. But it was a good visit, she was very positive and encouraging when I talked to about my plans around weight loss and she gave me a lab req to get my cholesterol done again when I have lost 15 pounds. She said that it will probably make a difference AND it could be motivating, and I think she's right.
I'm still just loving this iPod thing. I cannot believe the podcasts that are out there, all free for the loading, on all kinds of fascinating subjects. There's just no end to them and I've really been enjoying listening to them when I am vacuuming (yes, I got it done!) or in the car or walking. When I am working out hard, the music works better 'cause it's got that beat that I keep time with but for the easier efforts, the podcasts are good.
However, today I went out for quite a long walk/run and just for laughs, I thought I'd try loading some classical music on the iPod as well as the usual harder rock that I usually listen to for workouts. I have to say, running to the sound of Beethoven's Symphony #5 in C Minor is an experience not to be missed! It's a very stirring piece of music and it worked quite well. And didn't I feel ever so cultured (as I splattered mud up the back of my pants; yes, mud season on the back roads is now in session).
Got a dentist appointment tomorrow first thing (getting all the maintenance work done!). I REALLY don't like going to the dentist and he actually has to do some work as I cracked an old filling. Still, I'm thinking the iPod might come in handy there too.
I've been having a hard time getting those gym days in on workday mornings. I'm pretty tired tonight, both from the long cardio today and from staying up a little too late last night so I'm going to head off to bed soon and maybe try doing some visualization of tomorrow's workout before I go to sleep.
In other workout categories, I have been wanting to incorporate some yoga into my life somewhere but I'm having a hard time finding when. I have considered the classes around town but I never seem to get to them. One of the local yoga instructors does private lessons for an hour and a half and I was thinking about maybe doing that--getting her to design a program for me, show me how to do it, check out my alignment, breathing, etc. and then I can just do it on my own. And take another private lesson a few months down the road. Who knows, if I started doing it regularly, I might like it so much that I would show up to some of those classes. I don't think I would have too bad a time doing it on my own as I seem to have reasonably good body judgement (by which I mean I can tell, for example, if my leg is straight or at a 45 degree angle without looking at it). Maybe because I used to teach aerobics (back in ancient times), took all kinds of kinesiology courses and was certified for some time (nothing to do with my sanity, although there are some who might argue that!).
I think it's a good idea for me to add some new experiences in at regular intervals, BEFORE I get bored and start slacking.
Procrastinating no longer, I am off to bed! Best wishes to everyone for tomorrow.
Boy, it is really clear to me that during the week is becoming a bit of a struggle for me. I need to plan other things to do in the evening, especially if I have been out and about and am coming home a bit late--that seems to be a major danger time for me as far as eating goes but even the other evenings were tough. I am starting a new online course next week (all about Macs and how to get the most of them) so I'm hoping that will keep me occupied. But I need to put my thinking cap on for other options.
Having another good weekend, including a long snowshoe (yes, we are STILL snowshoeing here!) with a couple of hard climbs and then off to the gym. It felt good to be working out again although I am procrastinating again today. Procrastinating! It is my downfall and I know how much it bugs me!
I am procrastinating lots of things today--supposed to be working on my article for the newsletter and I did start on it early this morning but I should be back at it and I'm just putting it off. I should be getting to the gym and doing the vacuuming and I am putting those things off too. I always have these internal struggles with myself, sometimes in quiet voices and other times hollering, "Get to the gym, for crying out loud!" (ummm, I don't mean LITERALLY yelling...not quite ready to get hauled off to the loony bin yet!).
Procrastinating is the worst. I know that if I just DO the stupid thing (whatever it is that I am avoiding) that I will feel better and then I can stop thinking about it and enjoy the rest of my day instead of having it hanging over me all day long, nagging at me in the back of my head, casting a pall over anything else that I do. I guess I know why I do this--it's always something I'm not really sure how to handle (the article), something I really don't like doing but has to be done anyway (vacuuming) or something that takes a bit more energy than I seem to have in my pocket at the moment (gym).
Priority is the gym so I will go and do that first and while I'm there, try to brainstorm some solutions for my eating in the evening. I'll do the vacuuming when I get home (I despise vacuuming, can you tell?) 'cause it doesn't take very long. Then I'll put in at least one hour on the article before dinner.
Have kind of fallen apart the last few days on the eating. Monday I was doing really well all day but I went to a course in the evening about retirement planning. It was really quite boring, not very helpful and I found the instructor really annoying (she acted out everything she was saying, bouncing back and forth across the room; I think she secretly wants to be a stage actor!). And it meant that I stayed at work late ('cause the course started an hour and a half after I finish work and is much closer to my workplace than to home) and got home later, at least for me. Because I try to get up so early for a workout, I try to get into bed by 9:30 and I was just walking in the door at 9:30.
Now, the SMART thing to do would have been to go straight to bed! But I notice that this is a big danger time for me--it is when I go out to see Mum after work and get home at around 8:00. Whenever I am doing something in the evening that is not a really good or fun thing, something that brings up some sort of negative feelings for me (sadness and guilt with Mum, boredom and frustration with the course), I want to stay up later and eat. I think it is because on some subconscious level, I think I need a treat after getting through whatever it was. And I head straight to the starches and simple carbos, which completely fits it seeing as they produce the seratonin reaction.
Same thing happened last night. I had a meeting at the facility where Mum lives, a once a year meeting with all the people involved in her care. I TRY to go in there with a good attitude, to be open, to listen to what they have to tell me. They are there with her a lot more than I am and I know I need to hear what they have to say. But, arrrrggghhhh!! It is SO hard for me to sit and listen to veritable strangers talk about my mother, about what she is like, about what she is doing, everything to do with her. The care they have to give her is of the MOST intimate kind and I feel absolutely violated on her behalf. I think about how I would feel to have strangers hands on me, moving me here, pushing me there, feeding me, clothing me, telling me I have to do this or that. None of it is unreasonable but it is just that she has no choice. She is so utterly helpless. And so she strikes out at them sometimes, her elderly feeble attempt at some autonomy.
I am torn. I know what it is like to try to help her when she resists because she doesn't understand what that I am really trying to help her. I can imagine myself acting out against her when she clutches at the glass of orange juice that I am trying to hold for her to drink and spills it all over me. I can imagine myself doing that so I can imagine the caregivers in the place doing it. And that haunts me. The truly horrible thing about all of this is that there really is no way to know if they are taking good care of her or not. I think there would be signs if they were completely ignoring her or if there was active abuse but there is no way to know if the care is good. I have even considered, at times, the remote possibility of putting in a hidden camera. The horrible truth about that is I am afraid of what I might see. And then, should I see something unacceptable, what, in the name of God, would I be able to do about it? Where would Mum go? What could I do?
I think I am probably overthinking this a bit too. There are lots of signs in this facility that they are proactive, that they are trying to involve the patients and the families in improving service and quality. I don't find the workers really unpleasant, just a bit harried at times. And because it is government controlled, there is very little I can do to influence staffing levels. If there are unpleasant moments, I think it's reasonable to assume that they are fleeting ones. And I suppose, it is about the same as people sending their children to school and hoping that they are not being bullied and knowing, deep down inside, that they may be bullied a bit and they (the parents) will never know it.
And of course, the whole meeting and seeing Mum afterward took a lot longer out of my work day than I had intended and I didn't get much done so then I am feeling overwhelmed at work again!
Sigh. I know I think too much sometimes. And it results in binges, one last night, one the night before. No exercise either day. And a heavy, heavy feeling in my heart this morning which makes me ever more lethargic. I did have a really good, long talk with a dear friend of mine yesterday. He works in the health care field so he gets it. But I do feel that kind of downward spiral starting that I have experienced before--some kind of emotion leading to overeating, feeling rotten and hopeless about the overeating leading to lethargy, leading to less exercise, on and on.
I guess the good thing is, I just read this over and I am reminded of that scene in the movie Moonstruck when Nicholas Cage first tells Cher that he loves her and she looks at him like he's nuts, gives him an almighty smack across the face and kind of yells, "Snap out of it!!" I am actually laughing a bit at myself right now and saying the same thing. For heaven's sake, is it going to help, sitting here drowning in my sob story? Is it going to help Mum? Is it going to get work done? Is it going to make me feel any better? No? Well, then Snap Out Of It!!
So I'm going to sign off now and head outside with the dog. It may not be the most intense or longest workout but I can at least take him for a walk and that, really, is what it's all about. Putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.
What a great, relaxing weekend this has been and just what I needed. Yesterday, we puttered around the house, I got myself up to the gym and had a good hard workout and then we took the dog out for a snowshoe. The snow is rotting out now and the conditions were not that great but it was a gorgeous sunny day and we made the best of it. Checked out "The Daily Plate", thanks to my compatriots here. Looks like a great site--I have been using Fitday.com but I think that TDP has more features so I am going to see if I can make the transition. The only hesitation I have is that I know Fitday so well AND I have added so many custom foods there so it is quick and easy for me to use.
I also found some menu/recipe/nutritional analysis software to replace what I used to use on my old PC. I recently got a new iMac (and wow, it is GREAT) but the Mastercook software I used to use intermittently is only PC based. I found something called Shop 'n Cook and it looks way better. I am trying a 45 day free trial and just going through the orientation instructions. Sheesh, entering a recipe is way faster and easier than it was on Mastercook and it just loads up the nutritional analysis as easy as as can be. This is going to make it a lot easier for me to keep track of my calories as I tend to be a bit of a freehand cook, making up things as I go along.
The other great thing about this software is that I can download recipes off the internet and plan menus by dragging and dropping recipes onto the calendar. I'm hoping this will make it easier to plan ahead as well.
I've also been importing tons of CDs into my iTunes as well as some recorded books. I've been listening to music so much more than I have for years now and it's so invigorating.
Last night I went out to the hot tub and sat there in the silence with all the stars overhead, thinking about Maxfield Parrish's painting called "Stars" (if I was clever, I would know how to post a thumbnail of it) which has always been one of my favourites, portraying a nude woman sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, leaning back and looking up at an indigo blue sky full of stars. Nobody paints blues like Maxfield Parrish. I was also thinking about Van Gogh's "Starry Night", another favourite of mine, and kind of singing Don McLean's "Starry, Starry Night", about Van Gogh. It's sort of sad but so pretty.
And today the sun is out in full force again and I am listening to CBC, "The Vinyl Cafe", which is a hilarious and often touching radio program (kind of like Prairie Home Companion by Garrison Keillor) and it's so bright in the kitchen, I almost need sunglasses. There was a great story that a woman sent in, about how her husband planned a birthday party for her fortieth birthday party. Her friends talked the husband into hiring a male stripper but they all headed home early so when the stripper showed up, there was only the woman and her husband to watch his excellent and enthusiastic performance . When he peeled off the last layer, he flung his black silk g-string into the air and they landed on her husband's cigarette. She wrote, "The evening ended as so many evenings end in real life (), with a scantily clad stripper eating a hearty plate of party leftovers, discussing home renovations with my husband, as I stitched up the hole in his black silk g-string.".......LOL!
As for that exemplary man that I share my life with, he's already got a pork loin roast rubbed up with spices, resting until it's time to cook it, and a mop ready to slop onto it as HE, yes, HE cooks it. I'm going to peruse a couple of cookbooks to see if I can find a couple of nice side dishes. I make a point of hugging him every time I pass him, burying my nose in his neck, breathing in that smell that means so many good things to me. Wow, the sense of smell is a wonderful thing, isn't it? I am really looking forward to the smells of spring when the earth breaks out of it's white shell and barrels full blast into it's juiciest, most exuberant season.
Well, I better get myself out the door and up to the gym again before it gets too late in the day. Feeling so much recharged and ready to get back to my program. I've been holding around 157, up a half pound, down a half pound, up, down--I'm ready to see a lower number on the scale now!
. When he peeled off the last layer, he flung his black silk g-string into the air and they landed on her husband's cigarette. She wrote, "The evening ended as so many evenings end in real life (
), with a scantily clad stripper eating a hearty plate of party leftovers, discussing home renovations with my husband, as I stitched up the hole in his black silk g-string.".......LOL!