But not as bad as I thought it would be! That weight just would not fall off me last week! Because, like every good person in denial, I fully expect that it should just FALL off!
Anyway, I'm up 0.6 pounds, so this week my goal is to lose 1.6 pounds. And it didn't start out well. I went out with some friends for lunch on Sunday - we went to a tea parlor, so we ate salad, tea, scones, more tea, mini chicken salad sandwiches, a whole pot of tea! and 3 mini desserts.
The scone was out of this world and I refuse to feel guilty for eating it. But the desserts weren't great and while everyone else took a bite and said "eh," I did the same thing and then proceeded to eat them anyway...what is WRONG with me?! You'd think after YEARS and years of dieting I would figure this out.
Then to make things worse, I decided that I would cook dinner for myself. I got a yummy low fat/low cal eggplant parmagiana recipe from Hungry Girl (which is awesome, btw - sign up for the newsletter). But the thing is, I didn't have the low-fat cheese, or the low-cal tomato sauce, so I used part-skim mozzarella and whatever sauce was on my shelf. So even though I split it into extra portions, and did good measuring my pasta portion, I still ate more than I should have, thereby totally negating the concept of the Hungry Girl recipe...but that's not all...
I had a dairy serving leftover, so I decided to make a pumpkin milkshake - milk, pumpkin, vanilla, splenda, cinnamon all mixed together - it was delicious. But before the night was over, I somehow managed to sneak in a chocolate ice cream cone without my brain registering it.
So the short story is, I sabotage myself all the time. And if I just followed the plan and stopped to think for a nano-second, I would make better choices and already be at goal. But I don't, and I'm not. And today is a new day, and so far I haven't made a single food mistake. So let's hope I'm slowly learning...
...are much more filling when you cook them for a minute or two. Usually, raw carrots make me even more hungry, and I didn't want that today, because it's just one of those days where you want to eat, all the time. Not craving anything in particular, just want to eat now. Eat sooner, eat more. So cooking the carrots definitely helped.
Why is it that hot meals are just more satisfying than sandwiches or salads? Must be a mental thing...reminds me of dinner, instead of lunch!
Trying to be very, very, very good for my WI tomorrow - but I'm afraid that the Friday night curse will happen as it always does - either I'm out with friends, or even just sitting at home, but I'm awake longer than I normally am, which leaves more time to eat...but who wants to go to sleep early on a Friday night?!
I hope my very first WI on this graph thingy isn't a gain...but I'm so anxious to get the heck out of work today, I can't think of anything else but FREEDOM! So please excuse the crazy post...
So I haven't been to JC in 2 weeks because I was skiing last weekend. I don't think I went overboard with my eating - I ate off the JC plan, and probably had more dessert than I should have, but I wasn't drinking, I wasn't eating out, and I was exercising more than I have been in the last few weeks.
Normally after this kind of "off the wagon" behavior I can drink a lot of water, get back on plan, and the scale drops down to where I was in a day or two. But it hasn't moved AT ALL since Monday! Could I actually have gained 2 pounds of ice cream?!? I just don't believe it! Now I wish I had written down what I ate, because I can't remember...
So next week I start a new food/exercise journal, because obviously I'm sneaking food in without being conscious of it...
I'm dissapointed in myself - I had a loss three weeks in a row and wanted to keep that momentum. This happens to me all the time - you'd think I would LEARN from it by now!
Hope everyone enjoyed their Mardi Gras! I gave up chocolate for Lent this year. It's very cliched I know, but I think it will help me a lot, because I need to get control of my cravings. For the last few years my Lent "giveup" has been to stop eating by 9pm every night, but that's just not feasible anymore - I rarely get home before 9pm, and then have to make dinner! One of these years I'll do something that really mean something, like volunteering, not just something selfish like tweaking my diet for 40 days!
In other weight loss news, I bought Jillian's (from The Biggest Loser) new book. She actually yells at you through the book - I can almost hear her voice saying "Shut up, just do what I tell you!" It's fantastic! I haven't started anything yet, still doing the food and exercise analysis in the first few chapters, but so far I like it! We'll see what I say in a week when my arms and legs hurt and I wind up throwing the book out the window! She gives you a diet to follow, but I'll be keeping to JC instead, and maybe playing around with the meals (if her plan says eat chicken, I'll pick a chicken JC dish, etc.).
What was interesting is that Jillian's book says I should be eating around 1600 calories! JC has me on 1200, but I'm not going to mess with that until I have my exercise plan under control. Strange...
In normal life news, I've been very cranky lately, and I pinpointed why that is...everyone around me is very negative. My boss walks in the office and the first thing out of her mouth is a complaint (not only a complaint, but the same complaint she had yesterday, and the day before, and the month before that). The people in my office complain about people, weather, clients, phone calls, emails - in fact, I don't think anyone ever talks about something nice - the only time they come out of their offices is to complain to me. So when every conversation I have is a negative one, naturally I'm cranky. And naturally, I pawn off my complaints on you! So it's a vicious cycle, but there has to be a way to shield myself from their negativity. In other words...I need a new job.
So I've been skiing since as long as I can remember - my parents put me in ski school at 3 years old and it's a cornerstone of my childhood - the best memories, the best vacations, the most fun with family and friends was spent in a ski lodge or on the slopes. I always loved it.
Last year, however, I didn't love it. In fact, I could barely do it. My ski pants were so tight I couldn't bend at the waist. My ski boots were too tight around my calves and I couldn't close them all the way (dangerous!). I was sweating by the time I'd get to the lift, and halfway down the trail I'd have to stop because my thighs were SCREAMING! I'd never thought of skiing as exercise - exercise is something I don't want to do, and I always wanted to ski before...but last year, while waiting to catch my breath on the side of the mountain, I thought, "WHY do people strap pieces of plastic to their legs and hurdle themselves down a mountain?! Who ever said this was fun!?"
But it wasn't really me talking...it was the weight. And thankfully, with half of that weight off me, I had a fantabulous time skiing in Vermont last weekend! Yes my legs hurt. My ankles are a bit swollen. My thighs gave a yell every now and again. But all I was thinking of on the top of the mountain, in the beautiful sunshine and snow, breathing in the cold fresh air, was "wheeeeeee I'm flying!"
Here's to a winter full of ski weekends, fun with friends and loving my new form of "exercise."
I don't think I've ever had a "perfect" day - eating all my JC meals, NOT eating any extras, getting in my exercise. Usually, I consider it a perfect day if I eat only a little extra (I don't even count the gym). I wish I could stop measuring my happiness on how good or bad I do on my diet.
But so far, this is my life. I went out to dinner last night...it was an unexpected invitation, so right away I was angry, because my plan of going to the gym after work and eating my JC meal was totally out the window. But I didn't want to say no for several reasons - I LIKE going out to dinner, I like seeing my family and friends, and a small part of me feels guilty if I let people down (rather, if I think I'm letting people down - I mean who's going to be upset if the party of 8 turns out to be a party of 7?)
So my brain still has this problem with eating out, because eating out was always a treat in my house. You ate out on your birthday, after a school concert, etc. My parents love eating out, and all that goes with it, so I am the same way. So my little evil brain tells me "this is a special occasion, this is a special restaurant - you can't get grilled chicken at a steak house! You have to eat it all because it's special! You have to have dessert because they only offer this cake on Wednesdays! You might NEVER come here again, so take advantage of the situation!"
Now of course, NONE of what my brain is telling me is true. I could have ordered the pasta with a tomato sauce instead of the cream sauce and it still would have been fantastic (it had chicken sausage and zucchini yum!). I could have ordered the chocolate cake and shared it with the table, I could have just said NO THANKS to the whole invitation and spent my night on the treadmill instead of making small talk with friends of friends of friends that I will never see again.
But that was the choice I made last night. Now I have to make up for it. I DID enjoy myself, so I guess that's what counts in the long run. But in the short term, when you're on a diet, it's all you can do to not think about the food your eating and the time your wasting - only 2 days until my next WI, did I screw it up? Am I going to retain water from the restaurant salt content? If I don't have dessert for the next few days will it even out the chocolate cake? If I drink nothing but herbal tea and water, can I flush away a night of my life? Do I want to?
This is my first post/blog/whatever you want to call it. So let me tell you about myself, which, you'll soon realize, is my favorite thing to talk about.
First, the weight - the latest "diet" started in May 2006, when I was 210 pounds. I joined Jenny Craig a few weeks before a family vacation and found it easy to follow and got results in the first week! I managed to lose 10 lbs before going away, and have since upped that to 30 pounds total. Yes, I lost 10 lbs in one month, and the other 20 in a year and a half! About 6 months into it I lost my motivation and have teetered over and under that 180 line for about a year...but I'm motivated now and hopefully the latest few weeks of losses will keep me that way!
My goal - to be at goal (150 pounds or a size 8/10) by my birthday in July. That's 30 lbs in 6 months = 5 lbs per month...I can TOTALLY handle that!
The diet history - I've been on and off diets since I was 13 years old. Despite playing a ton of sports, my eating habits were crazy and I just got out of control. I started weight watchers with my mother, and would do great for a few weeks, but the first week I gained, I would get mad and give up (my mom also did the same kind of thing, so we weren't a big help to each other). The group discussions didn't apply to me (I wasn't a mother cooking dinner for her kids, or struggling with alcohol calories) and the points system was just too time consuming. In between all those WW starts and stops, I've tried hypnosis (fun, but not very helpful), Herbalife (passed out from lack of calories, got a concussion, puked pink "milkshake" all over the place!), TrimSpa (drank a cup of coffee, thought my heart would explode from all the caffiene!) and many many weight loss self help books (French Women Don't Get Fat... because they don't live in America...'nuff said).
So through Jenny Craig, I've learned to eat better - more veggies (which I now LOVE and can't live without), more fruits, less sugar and junk food, better portions and more self control. I've also done much better with the exercise portion of my life - everything feels better after you exercise, so I don't dread it as much, and I've found fun ways to get moving again.
That's all for now - photos to come, and hopefully some stories to keep you interested!
