Holiday Weight Gain

I have read various reports claiming the average American gains anywhere from one to 10 lbs over the holidays.  I think the average thin person may gain 1 lb, and the average fat person probably gains 10.  My weight has been fluctuating a lot lately, but I'm up 4 lbs from the average place I've been recently, which means I'm only down 3 lbs from my more recent high weight.

I guess I should be thankful I didn't gain it all back.  Alison blogged about the fact that she lost control over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  I commented that I didn't lose control because I wasn't trying to maintain control.  LOL - I know that's not a good thing.

I ate whatever I wanted, and I didn't really give it much thought.  I don't know why that is - it wasn't a conscious thought...I think in my subconscious, I'm probably just discouraged because nothing I do seems to change my weight lately.

I was talking with someone at work about this today, and she has been doing great with eating healthy, exercise, losing weight, etc..., but over this past weekend, she completely fell back into her bad habits.  She was surprised at how quickly good habits just seem to FLY out the window.

Sadly, there's no surprise for me there.  I worked so hard to change my lifetime of bad habits when I got the lapband, and I made huge changes.  My instincts changed.  The way I thought about food and health changed...and now, 2 years later, my old habits creep back in more and more.

On the way to work, I thought about how at the beginning of this year, I wanted to focus on toning my body.  I was on a great track, and I figured the rest was just going to come off whenever it wanted, so I was going to focus on getting my body as fit as possible.

Rather than doing that, I gained 30 lbs, and let my bad habits back in.  It has been so hard to focus on my health when I've had so many competing priorities.  Between work and school and all of my other projects, I've found myself wondering if I should put my weight loss journey on hold while I focus on things I CAN control.

I don't want to do that, though, because I know that 30 will grow to 60 which will grow to 120, and then I'm just about back where I started.

NO THANK YOU.

The reason why I have so many good things going in my life right now is because I'm healthier than I've been in a long time.  I've lost weight so I'm free to travel and roam about the world.  I have more confidence in business settings because now I'm only regular fat, not cartoon fat.  I don't mind putting myself out there more recording CDs, or being on film for my documentary or my tv show because I've lose a big amount of weight.

I absolutely refuse to go back to the way my life was.  I don't know how I can fit it all in, but I do know I don't have a choice.  Yes, it is annoying when I work so hard and I don't see changes on the scale, but I know that is temporary.  Eventually my body will have to catch up with my actions, and I just need to stick with it to get to that point.

I am 77 lbs away from my goal.  I can do this.  I'm focusing on just today for now.  For today, I know I can make healthy choices and get my exercise in.  I'm not going to worry about tomorrow.  I'm taking it one day at a time.

I'm not going to gain 1 or 10 lbs over the holiday season.  I'm really hoping to be down 20 (from my high point) by the new year.  That will just give me 60 lbs to go to reach my 8/12/10 goal weight as TJ has predicted. 

Normally, I would think that was completely reasonable.  I have a month to lose 17 lbs.  The four that I'm up from last week will be easily gone in a day or two or three, so it's really only 13 lbs to lose in 4 weeks.  If I'm trying hard, that should be no problem.

However, as I've seen recently, my body is confused...probably from all the up and down action.  It doesn't know what to do, and I swear, it thinks I'm bluffing, so it hangs onto the weight, even when I'm perfect for weeks on end.

However, I'm going to push that out of my mind for now, and I'm going to use positive visualization to see the number on the scale as 20 lbs lower than my highest, and my clothes fitting 20 lbs better.  I'm going to envision myself making healthy choices and working out regularly as the lbs come off.

By next August, you won't recognize me.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is tomorrow!  I'm very excited because I *love* thanksgiving dinner, but I'm even more excited because my Mom and Dad are visiting!  I grew up having very traditional thanksgiving meals, and that's how I continue to make holiday meals as an adult.  It's not very exciting or sophisticated of me, but I associate tastes and smells with tradition, and I like remembering holidays from my youth.  They were always very yummy, and sometimes even quite entertaining, depending on the involvement of extended families.  :)

We are having just the four of us tomorrow, so the menu is very simple:

• turkey (free range, antibiotic free, of course!!)
• mom's homemade stuffing
• mashed potatoes (original and cheesy baked)
• green bean casserole
• corn
• turnip
• carrots
• cranberry jelly
• grammy's apple pie
• cheesecake
• pumpkin pie (maybe)

I think that's about it - of course, rolls, bread, gravy, salad, etc...  I feel like I'm forgetting something. 

My Mom has been quite concerned about me pulling this meal off.  It's very funny because I think that thanksgiving dinner is one of the easiest meals to make.  It can be a lot to coordinate, but overall, it's really not that bad.  I've probably hosted at least 10 thanksgiving dinners in my adult life.  A mother worries, though, right?  :)

She asked me the other day if I needed her to email me all the components that go into a Thanksgiving dinner.  LOL - I think I got it.  :)  Today, she asked me if I had sent Darcy to the store yet to get the food for tomorrow's meal.  I teasingly told her that we were waiting until tomorrow morning because the store will be open.  She uttered her best protest, while I kept up the ruse, but I finally broke down and told her that the shopping was already done, and boy was she relieved!

My Mother is very funny.  She is making her delicious apple pie for our meal tomorrow, and they don't fly in until this afternoon.  She decided to make the crust at home and bring it with her on the plane to save time.  I just got a call from my parents saying that they pulled my mother over in airport security due to the foreign substance (uncooked pie crust) that they found in her carry on.  They were going to throw it out, but she begged them not to, so they brought over some sort of tester to make sure it wasn't an explosive substance, and the crust was cleared.

"Well you know," my Mom said to me on the phone, "90% of people don't even make their own pie crust these days so no wonder they didn't even know what it was!"  LOL - hilarious.

This is going to be a very fun holiday, and I'm hoping that portion control will save us all.

:)

...and here we go again...

I am somehow under the weather yet again.  I had the flu shot, so I'm not sure what's up with that.  I didn't have the H1N1 yet - I'm supposed to get that tomorrow, but they won't give it to me if I'm sick.  For work, I'm in the hospital all the time, constantly surrounded by germs.  I should probably wear a mask to work.  LOL

I'm hoping it's just a cold.  On Friday, I started to feel that weird feeling in my chest that I get before I get sick.  It's a little tight, a little bit like a burn, but that's about it.  By Saturday, I wasn't feeling great, and I was outside for hours, which probably didn't help.  We went out for dinner for Alison's birthday, and I had a hard time eating because I was feeling a little sick to my stomach.  Within a few hours, I was totally sick to my stomach, and I headed home.

Yesterady, I needed to work all day, but I found myself on the couch the entire time, achy, lethargic, and just feeling icky.  I didn't take my temperature, but I think I had a fever that broke in the middle of the night when I woke up drenched in sweat.

I feel a little better today than I did yesterday, but I'm just sneezy, with a tickle in my throat, a non-stop runny nose and puffy eyes and face filled with fluids.  Basically, I'm very attractive right now.  I have to be *very* careful monitoring my fever, because if I get a fever again, I cannot come into work.

Since I wasn't able to work yesterday, and with this being a holiday week, I am very behind, and I do not have time to be sick.  I'm going to think good thoughts, take vitamins, get lots of fluids, and hope this thing disappears very quickly!

The new diet food

I am having an extra crazy week this week (believe it or not!), and yesterday was insane.  I decided to drown my frustrations in fat, and I met Darcy for lunch at Pizzeria Uno.  Naught-Y!  If you haven't had Pizza Skins yet, don't.  They are devilishly good.

...Unos buttery crisp deep dish crust filled with mashed potatoes, and topped with melted cheese, bacon, chives and sour cream.  Pure evil.

So I ate those, and then moved onto my personal pan cheese and tomato pizza and then had the leftovers for dinner. 

Naturally, I was down 3 lbs today.  LOL 

Huh?

This is not teaching me a good leasson.  Eat like an angel and workout like crazy and lose nothing, but eat the most fattening food on the planet, skip the workout, and then be down 3 lbs I haven't been able to lose in weeks?  LOL...

I give up!  :)

Competition

As I mentioned, Darcy starts her new job on 11/30.  She'll be working 5-9 Monday - Thursday and a normal day on Fridays.  As a result, we won't be able to workout together during the week.  To stay motivated, I am going to suggest a little friendly competition.

I am sometimes on the competitive side, but Darcy really isn't, so I have to think of something that is worth it for both of us.  I'm thinking that whoever works out more (either times or minutes??  what do you think?) will win for the week.  I was thinking of the prize being related to housework.  The loser has to clean the house, or something like that.

...but I have a feeling if Darcy loses, she'll just tell me she's not doing it.  LOL

Suggestions???

My Big Phat Train to Nowhere

I haven't been eating great these past few days.  I am PMSing (still!), and we need to go grocery shopping (desperately), so we have been eating out a lot.  I haven't worked out in a week.  At first, it was because I hurt my back, but this weekend, I was so busy working around the house, I didn't have time.  I definitely burned a lot of calories, though!

I'm still down the 7 lbs I lost.  My weight fluctuates, and for lots of last week, I was up from there, but I've been back down to those 7 lbs lost for the last few days...which leads me to believe that if I was eating what I'm supposed to, I'd actually be down more...but who knows with my crazy weight fluctuation.

All this talk of food is making me hungry.  Haha.  Yesterday, Darcy and I went out to lunch.  I ordered a steak with mashed potatoes.  The food came out on an extra large plate, and it was honestly absurd.  I think I'll probably get about 5 meals out of it.  Seriously.  I wanted to scold them for having such large portion sizes, but I'm too fat to get away with that...LOL

We are renewing our membership with our trainer, but I'm not sure what the schedule will be now that Darcy is going back to work, and her schedule is evenings.  We can still do Saturday together, but we'll have to go separately during the week.  It's been a saving grace having her there, because every once in a while, I get a few seconds to catch my breath while the trainer is working with her.  When it's just one on one, I know I'm going to die!

Tonight I plan to go swimming, and I can't wait.

Salad: Friend or Foe?

Somewhere along the way, we started equating salads with diet food.  If you go on a diet, you eat salads all the time.  I'm not sure how this happened.  I love salads, but most salads aren't that great for you.  Lettuce, which makes up most salads, has almost no nutritional value, and salad dressing is extremely unhealthy.  Even the low fat/low calorie salad dressings can be a bit dicey. 

Here is the nutrition information for some popular salads that are out there:

Shorty's crispy chicken salad:  1850 calories
Applebees Low fat asian chicken salad:  900 calories
Houlihans Chinese Chicken Salad - 950 calories
Quizno's Classic Cobb - 1050 calories (71 grams of fat!!!!)
Ruby Tuesday's Carolina Chicken salad - 1400 calories
Chili's Boneless Buffalo salad - 1070 calories
Chili's Quesadilla Explosion salad - 1380 calories
Chevy's Fresh Mex Tostada Salad with Chicken, Carnitas or Steak - 1720 calories

For perspective, a Whopper with cheese and mayo is 760 calories, and a Big Mac is only 560!

There are certainly healthy salads out there, but just be careful.  Salads can be sheep in wolves clothing!  :)

Happy Days are here again

LOL - I don't have that going on, but I do have a nasty bloat and an appetite out of Oliver Twist.  I feel like a hungry animal when I eat.  Then my food gets stuck.  LOL - it's quite a cycle.

I'm achy and tired.  I hurt my back moving a filing cabinet yesterday, and it's not helping.  Between the bloat and a few bad choices, I'm not doing very well on the scale...  Each day, I wake up with the intent of being a good girl, but then as the day wears on, I get sloppier with my choices.

I only have this struggle when I'm sick or PMSing.   It's not right.  I need an antedote.  I'm not overly concerned because I was just losing and gaining the same weight over and over again even when I was being perfect, so I'm not sure what the difference is, although I do hate it when I eat bad food.

I'm going to do my best again today.

Someone has a case of the Mondays

LOL

I almost didn't blog this morning because I'm so tired.  It was funny reading Alison's and TJ's blogs because they said the exact same thing.  I have no reason to be tired at all.  I was in bed early, I had a fairly relaxing day yesterday, I'm not sick (that I know of - LOL), but I'm super duper tired.

I have to give a 90 minute presentation today, and I can't possibly imagine moving my mouth that long.  I can't even open it right now.

I had a good weekend.  We had a great workout on Saturday.  I didn't eat great yesterday, but it was my naughty day.  I don't think those help, but since I'm not losing, I can't imagine they hurt either.

Tonight I'm going out for dinner with a coworker, and I'm not sure where we are going to eat.  I want to have something healthy, and that's always a challenge at a restaurant.  I don't know where we are going yet, so I can't plan for my healthy choice yet.

I'm going to crack open a diet coke because I feel like I'm seriously about to nod off.  :)

Lunchables

Do you remember Lunchables? They are this Kraft "food" that came out when I was a kid - mainly designed for lazy parents who don't see serving overly processed, high in saturated fat and sodium foods to their kids as the child abuse that it is...

When I was a kid, they didn't have many combinations, mainly just ham, cheese and crackers that you assemble into mini sandwiches. Now they have tons of different options.

I mention this because, I'm sad to say, I just consumed one for breakfast. It was utterly disgusting. I didn't bring any food with me today because I'm meeting people for a business lunch, and it's cereal vending machine day, which I look forward to. LOL

For some reason, the vending machine was out of cereal. My choices were ramen noodles, a blueberry muffin, a sub, egg salad sandwich, or ravioli. The blueberry muffin would have probably been better from a saturated fat and sodium standpoint, but there are a lot more calories, so I chose the least of many evils.

It's sitting in my stomach like a brick right now. Ew. I hate unhealthy food. From now on, I'll need to bring some back up breakfast options in case they are out of cereal again. What a shame. :)

Of course I was up some weight today, but at least I got to enjoy yesterday. Tonight we are swimming, tomorrow we have kickboxing, and Sunday (depending on my knee and the weather), I would like to go hiking.

We will keep plugging away...

Working out

Our trainer had us start out our workout with 10 mins of cardio yesterday to get us warmed up.  I was so aggravated for being up 6 lbs since Sat (7 lbs from the previous Sunday), feeling like junk, etc...  as I sat there on the treadmill, I kept repeating the following verse in my head:

This sucks
I'm fat
This won't change
Any of that

LOL - very motivating.  ;)

So you have an idea of where I was when my workout started yesterday...  but I must tell you, by the end of the workout, I felt great.  I love those endorphins!  :)  I sweat a ton, I did things I didn't know I could, I had FUN, and it was just a really good thing.  I needed that.

In fact, we're thinking of setting up 4x/week sessions with her.  It's a lot of money, but I love it, and I think it could really work for us.  That way, we'll have our 4 weekly workouts set, and then we'd just have to do one day/week on our own - we can take the other 2 days off if we want, or not. 

After our workout, Stephanie and Carolyn had us over for a wonderful Chicken Marsala dinner.  It was a WW recipe, and it was fantastic!  Unfortunately, I've been so tight this week, I couldn't keep any of it down.  Before dinner, I was starving, so I had 4 crackers with 3 pieces of cheese.  That was my dinner, and that is probably why I was down 6 lbs today.

I know how I've been lately which means I'll be up some or all of it again tomorrow, only so I can lose it all again in a few more days, but for today, I'm going to be happy knowing I'm down 10 lbs from 2 weeks ago, and my goal to lose 80 lbs is currently down to 70. 

For those of you who have been asking about a fill - I don't have an update.  I need to schedule an appointment, but right now I'm not feeling a sense of urgency because I've been so tight lately - I have trouble getting anything normal down.

I had a single serving bag of popcorn for breakfast today because I knew it would go down.  I am sure a fill won't hurt, but I'm not having trouble sticking to my calories, so I don't know what difference it will make.  I feel a good amount of restriction, and I keep to under 1000 calories/day...  I guess 600 would be better...

Anyway, for today, I'm happy.  When I gain today's loss back tomorrow, I won't be.  :)  Heads up!

Life at 96

I think I hurt my back at the gym on Monday...the part that I fell on last year.  It started to really bother me last night, and today it's just bad. 

Kickboxing should be interesting tonight - my back is killing me and I forgot my knee brace.  It shouldn't matter too much about the knee brace because I think we are focusing on arms and chest, but I'm worried about hurting my back even more.  Oh well!

Not only am I not losing weight, but exercising is causing me injury and pain.  I'm not really seeing an upside to all this.  ;-)

I was up 3 more lbs today.  That's up a total of 6 from the weekend.  I know I must be starting to PMS, because I'm bloated for no reason, extra tired, sore and more aggravated by this all than I normally would be.

I'm not sure that knowledge is helping, though.  :)

The other red meat

Bison, baby.  Have you tried it?  It's good!

Darcy and I picked up some ground bison from our local organic market, and we had it mixed in with some whole grain acine de pepe and just a touch of light butter.  It was delicious.  Did you know bison has half the fat and calories of cows?  It's tastey, tender, and good for you! 

All bison are naturally grass fed, so think outside of the box, and give it a try!  Your mouth, heart, and waist will thank you.

:)

Ain't that the truth

Yesterday was exhausting.  It was a *crazy* day at work, and by the time I got home, I was completely exhausted.  I had dinner and headed out to the gym.  My plan was to do arms/chest for 30 mins, and then head to the pool for my 40 minutes of cardio.  I only made it through the first half of the plan.

It was all I could do to get through the exercises.  I don't know why, but I had ZERO energy.  When I got home from the gym, I was largely non-verbal for the rest of the night.  I tried to do some homework, but I keep having a problem with my computer, so I'm unable to complete one of the assignments I've been working on forever.  Aggravating.

I curled up on the couch and watched tv, and headed up to bed at 8:56.  I'm feeling on the tired side again today, and I have no idea why.  I don't feel sick, my allergies aren't bothering me, I think maybe I just need some time to relax.  I haven't had that in a while.

I have a crazy busy work week ahead of me, and I think I need some caffeine.

I couldn't keep my lunch down yesterday (I know, ew), so I was starving when I got home.  I probably had twice as much dinner as I'm supposed to have, but I was so hungry, I kept eating.  I was still under 1000 calories for the day, but of course, we had pasta for dinner, so I didn't lose any of the 3 lbs that I was up yesterday.

I'm down 7 lbs, and I keep losing the same weight over and over and over again.  I can't seem to get past it.  I have been working out hard and faithfully, keeping my calories low, taking vitamins, getting in tons of water, cutting out empty calories, and still, I feel like I'm trapped in a Bermuda triangle of weight.

It was really hard to get to the gym last night, feeling as tired as I did, and knowing I'm not really losing...but I went...and right now I can't imagine what good it did...although when we do arms/chest with our trainer this week, I know I'll be glad I got a work out in mid week to build my strength up, and I'm hoping I don't have the same reaction as I did last time we did arms/chest.  LOL

My sister suggested measuring inches, and I have been, but I haven't seen a difference in those either since a few weeks ago when I saw a pretty good change.  I didn't measure inches this week yet, though, so I'll try that tomorrow.

Better than a fribble...

Yesterday, we were in MA visiting Darcy's new little nephew, and we decided to have a nice Italian lunch.  Our favorite place in the area was closed due to renovations, so we went to Felicia's - Alison's fave.  I've never been very wowed by Felicia's, but my lunch yesterday was quite yummy.  I had Pollo Ponte Veccio - Boneless breast of chicken topped with prosciutto and fontina cheese, sauteed with mushrooms and artichoke hearts in a marsala wine sauce over angel hair pasta.

Yum.  I give myself one discretionary calorie day/week, and that day was yesterday.  I can't believe how big their portions are.  I have a rule that if I get something unhealthy at a restaurant, I eat a small portion in the restaurant, and I don't take the left overs home with me.  I probably got through a quarter of the meal, and then I had them throw away the rest.  I felt really bad - you couldn't even tell I'd eaten any of it...but I had!

The waitress looked at me in a pouty way, asking me if I was sure I couldn't take it with me - there was so much left!  I told her (in a nice way) that their portion sizes are way too big.  Seriously - why in the world would a meal need to be THAT big.  It's such a waste of food - do American's really still choose restaurants based on portion sizes?

I remember being younger, hearing older people talk about how great a certain restaurant was because of portion sizes, but I think we're all a lot more health conscious now than we used to be, so why are the portion sizes still so big??  I prefer a nice, appropriate sized, high quality food serving, and I'm not at all impressed by big food sizes.  It's wasteful and disgusting.

I know most people like leftovers, and that's probably somewhat of a draw, but why eat an unhealthy meal more than once?  Wasn't once enough?  I don't get it.

Someday, if/when I have a restaurant, I'm going to serve high quality foods, grass fed, local, chemical free, nothing processed, appropriate portions and nutrition information readily available.  I wish there was a restaurant like that near me now. 

Anyway, it was a nice change of pace to have a nice Italian meal.  I watched my portions, but I ended up at about 1350 calories for the day yesterday.  As my sister suggested, I should spike my calories once/week to keep my metabolism guessing.  I think that can be a good idea, as long as I don't get carried away.

Naturally, I was up 3 lbs today, but I knew I would be - pasta makes me bloated.  I'm sure it will be gone tomorrow, and hopefully, I can get back down to my low point from last week, and then lose more from there.

Grrrr.

So, one week ago, I weighed one lb less than I do today.  Yup, I've gained a lb this past week.  I didn't even have dinner last night, and I'm still not down to my low point.

For a recap, last Sunday AM, I hit a low that I hadn't hit in months.  Last Monday, I was up 6 lbs from that low.  It took me the past week to re-lose (once again) 5 of those 6 lbs, and I'm still not as low as I was last week.

This is actually quite annoying.  I think I am going go to have a fribble now.