*

10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

"do we take american express?"

i'm at work on my vacation because i am just that sad. and i didn't want to wait at the library. and now i'm off to start a tab at the liquor store. it's that kind of vacation. the kind where i spend the whole week baking and shopping and eating. it's kind of awesome.

i had a nice run this morning, and now inexplicably my arms hurt. i don't get it. but what's new. all this time and i'm still learning about my body. fascinating.

right, i'm boring myself here. i'll be putting up some pictures by phone so it might look a little weird till i get back to a computer. sorry. hope everyone has a great week!

Friday, May 25, 2007

"Will hiding in a cavern with stockpiled chocolate goods be any part of this plan?"

for not thinking about food this week i've sure done a lot of meal planning. not as in "green beans tuesday and kale sunday" but as in we're going to this restaurant for lunch and this one for dinner. whooops! i wasn't going to do that. but at the moment i'm in the best mood i've been in for ages and if that means pizza before hitting the bead shop for vacation supplies so be it. i'm extremely looking forward to not working. i shall probably be internet-less for much of the week, which might actually get me off my ass on the setting up a phone line front. internet at home would keep me glued to my computer though when i want to spend it glued to my tv...and uh my running shoes.

what else what else. same poundage as the rest of the week and it's very hot. it was high thirties until today. today it's 90. i'm almost glad i'm stuck in the bank till five. we're short handed for the long weekend so it's lunch out and no walk, but i don't mind since it's so hot. i'm hoping we're so busy today that the calories just burn away as i hand money over the counter. i can hope.

this, i think, is the audio link to the conference call with dr. hill. that's not what they call him, something fancy like hill, phd. very magnum pi. it reminds me of robson green to say doctor hill, happy thoughts. did i mention vacation, because i'm going. i'm going to not work for a week and i'm so excited. now all i need is a muffler incase i want to leave maine. my dad will die on the spot if i come home with a car sounding like an overgrown lawnmower.

i have this feeling that my mom's car will last me exactly until i have the money to buy a new one, and then it will be kaput! which is good, i'd like to be able to afford the next one i just thought maybe i could save some money in between. fate is so finnicky like that. and intractable. the good thing is that the possible need of a vehicle, say one that starts, isn't making me hyperventilate. i'd just deal with it and it would be fine. it might even be fun to choose a car for myself. there's no money panic at all over the possibility. what a difference a year can make!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

"I know my ABC's, my history, I know who's President, and that I sorta wish I didn't."

two days before i go on vacation. not sure what i'm doing or where. what i'm trying to think about today is what i'm doing with my diet on vacation. i'm not going anywhere fancy so i won't be too tempted to spend all my money and time on food. normally when i go away almost every meal is eaten out, that's the way it is on vacation. if i'm home, i'll have way fewer options but i'll also be next to my fridge all day. i'm gonna keep thinking about it today.

i keep thinking about everything because i'm all confused about this vacation. usually i have very exact plans to get the absolute most out of my small paid allotment. but not this time. things have sort of fallen through and now my car needs some work and actually hanging out at home doing all the things i've been meaning to do forever sounds kind of nice. i can go to the beach or the mall or whatever for no reason and it will still be using less gas than if i drove to maryland so i won't have to feel guilty. a week without guilty would be awesome. i'm looking forward to this vacation more and more the fewer decisions i have to make. i love being a slug.

and since i mentioned it on debbi's blog i finally did lose that pound back to 169. patience is a virtue. if only it weren't so fucking difficult.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

fark this!

stop thinking, you'll feel better.

"These musty old books have a great deal more to say than in any of your... fabulous web pages."

someday i'm going to bump in to the person, completely by accident, who gives their voice to the unicell voice message and i'm going to go insane on the spot. "welcome to unicell, please dial all 10 digits!". i did you bastards. i dialed all ten digits five hundred times. that's a lot of digits. a slew. a gaggle of numbers. and then i had an ice cream sandwich and took a nap. so i didn't participate in that call thing last night, and i had debbi's question all ready to steal and make my own. the laws of copyright infringement are far reaching. so my evening was a bust, audio blogger fame is not to be mine, alas. and also i'm starving.

i already had breakfast so i'm trying diligently to chill. my scale read an unadulturated 170 this morning. the audacity, can you imagine? i'm pretty sure it's hormones and probably all the damn salt i've been eating. and maybe those french fries. things have been a little crazy foodwise, but i've got lots of good walks in and it's only wednesday. if i can push through the hormone thing at 170 that'll rock and i promise i won't complain. cross my heart.

i made the mistake of checking out my bmi and goal weights and yadda yadda. and i thought gee, 154 would be just under normal and it's only like 15 pounds (or 16 now i guess, see me not complaining?) and it's totally do-able. and then i thought, gee, if i keep up two pounds a week i'll be there in 8 weeks. july, i'll be skinny by july. is there a better way to be sure you never lose another pound than mapping it on a calendar. maybe buying a whole wardrobe in size 8, that would be bad too. i really wish i'd never thought about it, like "how much is hypnotherapy" wish i'd never thought about it. i'm going to try to forget about the 2 pounds a week and the july thing but remember the 154. i think that's a reasonable goal, right around normal. maybe i'll discover a secret formula that takes me below that with no trouble, but i doubt it. that's my goal. wish me luck!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

"I would pass by in the day but I feel I'm outgrowing my whole "burst into flame" phase."

wow, i seriously have not one thing i want to ask that doctor tonight. maybe if he was a psychologist, but a medical doctor? pretty much i know it's bad for me when i have an ice cream sandwich for breakfast. i don't need someone with an expensive degree to tell me that. i appreciate the medical industry's interest in the whole obesity thing but i think most people get it. we know what's good for us and what's bad for us and less in more out and we just don't care. having the facts doesn't mean that you still won't make bad choices. we're human and we like to err. a lot, some of us anyway.

i'm not saying that some medical facts aren't useful. for instance, i read somewhere that losing more than two pounds a week probably means you're losing muscle. so the optimum is two pounds a week to lose fat. that's a good fact and i like it and it will make a difference to me. if ever i'm losing more than two pounds a week i'll know that i'm doing something bad. but the other stuff, like fresh fruit and vegetables are better than a bag of chips. i think we all know that and if we want the chips we have them anyway. and sometimes we want them every single day and we do that too and then we get fat.

it's possible that that's a little off topic, i just don't know how to express how i feel about obesity and medicine. maybe it's all about bedside manner and if i'd had more reasonable doctors in my experience i might feel more of a connection. as we know i wasn't completely honest with my physician about my loss at my last visit. she might have assumed that i was living off one bag of cheetos a day and just never said. i really liked how she handled things compared to some of my other doctors. no pressure, no patronising, no telling me that i was buckling my own knees (hey, you're still bitter about that? yes, yes i am! the bastard!).

i guess for me it's more about the mind than the body. the body likes going for walks and runs and bikerides, the mind likes to watch Bones all afternoon. on the couch. with cupcakes. but i have no delusions that that's the way to a svelter me. i don't need a doctor to tell me, i never did. i may have needed counseling many different times in my life. i'm sure i needed financial counseling. i'm not sure i needed medical attention.

i guess i have not a thing to talk to this guy about. maybe i'll have a freudian slip and forget my phone at work. god i hope so. i don't need to be a moron in audio feed and via the written word. one medium is enough for me.

Monday, May 21, 2007

arghh, err

so, uhh, i guess i am doing that phone interview. but only if i have cell service. i don't even know where to find a payphone in this fascinating modern world we live in. the problem is that i have no idea what i'd even ask. any of y'all have burning diet doctor questions you want answers to? comment or email if you do, i'm seriously desperate.

mrrow

oh my god!

"That was real manly how you shrieked and all."

aww, man, 169. granted it was a weekend of gluttony and i've no right to expect anything, i'm still a little bummed but it's nothing to worry about. now that the rain has finally stopped, i can get back to exercising. i should be glad i didn't gain over 170 after almost a whole week with no exercise. it's not a great way to go about losing weight, sitting on your ass.

at the moment, i have none of the things i need to have a reasonable on diet day. i completely forgot to buy diet food at the grocery store. yogurt, cheese sticks, stuff like that. i stopped at the store this morning to take care of it and whoops! they're completely sold out of the only two things i wanted. i hate that. low fat cheese sticks just aren't that hard to find, can't be. they're not made of gold or orgasms or anything. geez. so i got an odwalla protein drink instead. i was desperate. i've already had my two servings of it, breakfast and snack. it wasn't so bad. i expect if i drank it on a regular basis i would get used to it. a little chalky, a little too sweet, but i'm not too hungry sitting here typing. it might just be a new find, especially for emergencies.

i had some adventures with tofu last night. for some reason i kept forgetting that i had already put soy sauce in the stir fry and i kept pouring in more. thank god it was low sodium. it was way way too salty, but i'm going to try to eat the left overs. with about a gallon of water handy. i suppose that could explain the extra pound in itself, the six pounds of salt i ate yesterday. i hate guessing like that though, it's much more likely a combination of things that together aren't so great for the body. i know i wasn't doing my best last week and this weekend, maybe i've got some of it out of my system. i'd like to have a fresh start on this last week before my vacation. to maintain atleast my 168.

in the course of the weekend of gluttony, i did a little shopping. testing the waters of size twelve. i picked up some more pants at the 15 dollar sale in new york and co. they're not bad really. i could've had a cute suit for 30 bucks, but i'm not a 12 up top yet. it was almost closing though. which means i should really test the size 16 suit jacket from february. it's probably a little undergrown. more stuff for the charity shop, brand frickin' new. i keep amazing myself with how big 16's and 14's seem now. and then when i'm wearing the 12's i think, gee i could actually be a lot smaller than this.

i thought 12 was smaller when i was fatter. the least i can say for my fatter self is that i kept my skinny dreams quite realistic, size 12 isn't so skinny as to be impossible. i think i'm being a little more hard on myself now than when i had less hope. it's funny how your expectations change with you. the impossible is a moving target now. something to catch up with. i really like that image. i think i'll keep it in mind while i try to figure out my new goals. i'm not ready to think about a new low goal yet. if ever. i don't want to chase a number when i might be perfectly happy a bit over. i guess i'll have to keep thinking about it and waiting and seeing and trying to stay happy with what i'm doing. and i am right now, happy with what i'm doing. i don't feel like i'm limiting myself, i feel like i'm not eating things that i don't want only because they're there. it's a big difference mentally. walking into the ring versus being dragged in. roar!

Friday, May 18, 2007

"I love syphilis more than you."

last night i had way too much pie. technically it was only the one piece, but i totally should have stopped at half. it was just so pie-y. chocolate bourbon pecan with homemade whipped cream. and if i ever figure out how to make it you'll never hear from me again because i'll be at home rolling on the floor and drooling for the rest of my life. unfortunately for me last night, when i ate all the pie, i went to bed full of the pie and there was too much pie. i dreamed of overeating and being uncomfortable and it ended with matt handing me a piece of toast and me trying to take one more bite and there just wasn't room. i've had a dream or two about food, but not like that. that was frightening, i can still taste the toast. no more excess pie before bed for me, i can't take the consequences to my subconscious.

fortunately for me there weren't any consequences for my ass. still 168. which means another two pound loss this week. and i'm not even going to mention how much i like losing two pounds a week. i wouldn't want to jinx anything or appear hopelessly optomistic. so i won't say anything about it. at all. see? discretion be my name. (two pounds a week...tehehehe) (cough)

in adult land i have all these decisions to make at the moment. the health insurance debate is rearing it's ugly head again. since i had no major, or even minor really, medical matters this year i'm going to stick to the high deductible. the self insuring i talked about last may. the extra money made a lot of things possible. things that, i think, make me a healthier person. i'm less stressed, less fat, and more active than i was last year. i have doubts that i would be in this much control of my life without that extra money. money i was only paying out of fear of the unknown. is it a bit too much to say that i don't fear the unknown anymore because i got backed into a corner over health insurance? probably. but it was a big personal step that opened a lot of doors for me. it was a little thing that made me realize i can face what comes and i don't have to work to prevent bad things from happening to me. i can save my effort to make good things happen to me and just enjoy them without fear. that's all, enjoying without fear. maybe i should write to hr and let her know that while everyone else feels fucked by last years cost cutting, it works for me. i bet she'd liked that.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

"Can't this thing go any faster? Ultimate driving machine, my ass."

i just turned down an offer to phone interview some fab diet doctor. anyone else get that email? he seems like a decent guy. shame i don't have a phone. there are a lot of good things about being out of the modern loop, like never hearing from telemarketers, but sometimes it is kind of a bummer. like when your dad keeps calling your cell and it never rings and then he thinks you're dead. bummer. so, cindy, i'm genuinely sorry. it's rare i miss a chance for shameless self promotion. but not rare enough to stand out at a payphone for an hour. i'd miss my shows. heh.

but anyway, yeah, 168 two days in a row. check me and my skinniness. i'm even wearing clothes that fit today. some ancient skirt from the limited when a 12 was really a 12. 'course i'm freezing, i think i got frostbite on my morning walk. what is with may when april was so hot. when it wasn't snowing. and they say the climate isn't changing.

i guess i'm feeling a little dramatic today. i'm on this mission to streamline my spending, and of course the space thing, and still i bought an ice cream cake last night. it was sort of a foody night. i didn't eat the ice cream cake. probably i'll leave it in the freezer till the pink icing petrifies, but i sort of had to have it. like how the pizza place shined it's lights on last night just as we were leaving work. the bastards opened early this year. how am i supposed to go home to tofu stir fry when the red light pizza district beckons? i know tomorrow i will fail. i'm frickin' planning on it. matt has to work late so i'm on my own for dinner. thank the lord i can buy it by the slice, that way i can take my dignity home instead of half a pie.

what else is up. skinny, skirt, oh yeah...tights. you know how when you're getting fatter you try really hard to wear your normal clothes? so you can convince yourself you haven't gained ten pounds in three days and everything will be fine again just wait and see? when you start to come down again is when you realize just how much you've stretched those clothes. and how they're pretty much ruined. i didn't know it could happen to tights. well, i just never thought about it. tights, it's all in the name. i had assumed they're supposed to want to kill you when you're wearing them. apparently no. my skirt salvation was damn near void this morning when i couldn't find any tights that would stay up. thirty pounds is a lot of thigh. i finally found some before i had an actual breakdown about it. some that had never been opened. the upside of being a shopaholic packrat. i know it's just clothes, just things i bought to make myself feel pretty, i'm really sad about throwing them away. like i'm throwing away the person who used to wear them and how maybe that's the right thing to do. it's hard to take in sometimes.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

"Jesus was not a zombie. I shouldn't have to tell you that."

welcome to the wonderful world of random!


my scale read 168 this morning and i didn't have to move it around for ten minutes to get there. not that i'd ever do that. ahem.

i think i left a comment yesterday somewhere that was fucked up. i meant to say "the elephant in the room" and i think i might have said "the white elephant in the room". it's hemingway tourrettes.

the cupcake site didn't update yesterday and i was really sad. practically despondent. what can i say, i like the pictures.

someone yesterday said "on the diet" in quotes and it's still making me laugh. are you "having the sex?" "are you doing the drugs?" sarah, please remind me where this came from.

i have an insatiable craving for a veggie bagel sandwich from sheetz like we used to get in the middle of the night in college. which means it's almost time for vacation in Frederick. i'm looking forward to it. and frozen custard. and seeing my friends. and probably more eating. i'm not sure how it's all going to work out because everyone's lives are changing and i might have to get a hotel room. growing up can be such a trial. and expensive. i'm a cheap bitch, aren't i? maybe if i have to pay to stay i won't eat my way up and down market street. but then what's the point of going? clearly i still have "the issues". le sigh.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

"Don't you watch television? I thought all children despise effort and enjoy cartoons.

169 with hardly any effort. i'm so pleased. pleased in the way that makes me want to not eat bad stuff so that number will hang around. that and it's a rainy day which really helps me fight the ice cream craving that's been rearing its' ugly head. in bizarre news a woman, who yesterday told me i looked like i lost a lot of weight since last year, said today that my pants were too big and made me look fat. thanks lady. i know that already and i don't need to hear it on the streets. i should be wearing skirts, like i said i would, but it's effing cold here. what can you do, some days are about the process and not the result and this is part of the process.

you think she would have said my clothes looked bad if i was too fat for them? it's probably more socially acceptable to say someone looks fat when you think they're thin. which sounds fucked up but it seems to be the norm. skinny things saying how fat they are and no one blinks an eye. i hate that. self-deprecation is the new black.

enough about crazy people (who seems to be the only ones commenting on my new...state. is that me self deprecating, i only hear compliments from the mentally ill?) and floppy clothes, i'm all about food today. it struck me this weekend while i was roaming the organic meats and eggs that i'm pretty confused about my organic shopping. i buy organic eggs because the featherless slave chickens make me sad, i buy unscrewed with chickens for the same reason and also because matt doesn't need the antibiotics they feed the aforementioned featherless slave chickens. i buy the shitty bacon because that's what matt likes but mostly he agrees with me about buying natural products. i choose unbleached flour, raw sugar...but i buy regular milk and produce. what's up with that? it doesn't actually make any sense. not now that i can afford to buy groceries i feel better about. so i'm going to be working on going more organic. maybe even soy with my milk. which i haven't tried since my sister was in high school and maybe i would like it now. ten years later.

i have been spending a little more than i budget for. it's hard to help the feeling that you're rich when you aren't suffocating in debt. i planned for this. i knew i would be a little free with the purse strings when things started to look up, but i'm trying to be realistic about it. i still can't afford to be careless and i've learned enough about spending and goal setting that i want to see things happen with my money that aren't limited to the expansion of my dvd shelf. i upped my budget by a small amount so i won't plan myself into a corner and come up short where i shouldn't be and still have a little fun.

however, it might be time to reassess my financial priorities. do i want to go organic badly enough to spend the money and give up something somewhere else? do i want to be eating into savings to have happy cow milk? or am i saving enough by not eating meat that it won't be a big deal to add organics. i've been all track and add and compare with my grocery bills the last few weeks to figure some things out. i do my best budgeting when i'm ocd about it. but i have to be ocd with an open mind. part of the freedom of getting out of debt is doing some of the things i've been putting off. good food is one thing, buying the books i want is another, and building hobbies is up there too. art supplies and classes, even fitness classes, cost money. i don't want to deny myself these things forever, i know they'll add to my happiness and quality of life and be worth every penny i spend. it's just there's this part of me that doesn't think i'm done paying for some of the mistakes i've made. a part of me that wants to be scrimping and saving incase something goes wrong or i make another bad choice. i have a lot of thinking to do. and some forgiving. and getting-over-ing. everyone makes bad choices, it's what you learn from them that matters. i'll be keeping that in mind while i crunch numbers. less punishment, more joy.

Monday, May 14, 2007

"beans are a roof over your stomach"

because we're listening to tortilla flat on our commute and i'm totally in love with steinbeck, and beans, it seems appropriate. not that i cooked any beans this weekend. actually, i ate like a fat girl. bad, bad amy. i had an ice cream cone and half a coke, i made some peanut butter cookies and stole a few while they were hot and crumbly. i'm still at 170 and that's how i'll start this week. we had a good weekend and i didn't gain so i have to be happy with that. i also had some pretty decent runs although i strained a muscle in my calf. i ran farther and longer each day and i was so poroud of myself, until my leg started to hurt. i'm trying to be reasonable about not really injuring myself so i only went for a very tiny walk this morning. it won't do me any good to completely kill my leg and lose a week of exercise instead of a day. so i'm taking it easy.

i'm trying to get a handle on today's diet strategy to keep even with not doing my daily exercise stuff. i had some inspirations of a sort this weekend, despite the sweet snacking i did. firstly i have a lot of cookbooks i don't use. and why do i keep them if i never open them. so i picked one my mom got for me from building 19 when i was still in college. a little flippy thing from good housekeeping all about cooking vegetables. there's a fragrant cinnamon couscous i want to try when i'm eating of the carbs more regularly and a bean burrito with rice and corn that i'm going to try too. i think i'm going to work through all my books like that. i really should have cookbooks i use, not just ones that are pretty. there's a really great shiitake fried rice recipe in one of my books that my mom cooked for me a few times that i've never made for myself. i think she'd like it if i made it, it would make me think of her.

and while i should still be in pennance for my eating, i think my ass is changing sizes again. the jeans i just bought seem a little roomy and 99% of my work pants are just way too big. i'm going to try to shrink them tonight to get a little more wear out of them, but mostly i'm going to have to get my skirt on for the summer. i have a slew of flimsy elastic waist skirts that should hold me over till i hit size 10. which would be amazing. i haven't contemplated size ten since the 10th grade. the fact that it's quickly becoming a possibility is unbelievable to me. a little something to keep me on the thin and narrow for the next week.

Friday, May 11, 2007

"I assume there's a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane explanation here."

170. which makes me grumpy. it could be the sore of my muscles holding on to some water, or it could be the ice cream cone. since it was a really tiny cone, it must be the muscles. logic be thy name. right now i'm trying to figure out my calories for yesterday but the spark page is really slow. either a whole lot of people feel penitent about their ice cream cones, or our servers are a little slow today which is probably the case. it adds a certain drama to the process. you wonder how bad you screwed up your diet and you enter all the bad food and your imagination is whetted with anticipation and fear while that stupid flag unfurls in the corner. goodthing i have all this chocolate to pass the time with...hehe. diet humor. it rawks!!

i am starting to feel sort of bad about the decision to have an ice cream last night. i didn't really need it. or want it. it was just such a nice day and everyone was walking around half naked and licking. it was hard to resist the breyers when i got home. too hard. today is a new day though and it's not as sunny and hot and i have no continued desire for ice cream. i'm just going to pick up where i left off and keep going.

it's almost the end of my first week. i started at 172 and for blog purposes i'm finishing at 170. 2 pounds isn't so shabby of a loss. the whole beach thing is supposed to be a bit more dramatic, but then you aren't supposed to cheat. that could have something to do with it. but i don't want to toss myself off a bridge with this way of eating so i'll definitely be sticking with it. maybe for longer than i thought. or as long as it takes to be successfully in the 60's. we'll see. can i tell ya i'm still waiting for the info on how bad yesterday was? how can i properly flog myself with the facts. life is hard y'all.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

"They were supposed to be my light at the end of the tunnel. I guess they were a train."

it seems like wednesday was excessively humpy for some of us. i survived without pizza and now i feel much better. i'm trying to remember if there was a hurdle like that the last time i did this space thing, but nothing is coming to mind. it might be indicative of having spent my morning in a compulsory self help rally, but i'm actually in a pretty good place right now. i was feeling a little *roar* about having to go, and while i still think it's a huge waste of money that could be in my paycheck or something, i'm wondering if maybe i'm being a little more closed off than necessary.

i hate it, everyone hates it, we're all being paid to be yes men and that sucks. what i never considered is that the principles of thinking positive and being kind to people aren't all that bad. when you take away all the ridiculous self help crap and the asinine note cards and the homework assignments, the basics are good every day reminders. i do believe it's better to look at the light of a situation instead of sulking in the dark. who am i to say that putting a note on my desk to that effect wouldn't be helpful? i've never tried it. i slam those sort of doors shut before i've even thought about what could be inside. it can't be healthy to be that rigid, so that's going to be my post it. chill out.

i'm going to try to open up a bit and think things through more. i've been tunnel vision girl lately, which is sort of good for dieting but bad for doing other things. i've screwed up a lot of baking this week. seeing as that has become my number one hobby, why aren't i putting any thought in to it. i put the batter for 24 cupcakes in 12 cups, they all came out sloppy. i defrosted some bread dough on the counter one day, when i went back to roll it the dough was the size of a rottweiler. you know how hard it is to roll flat a rottweiler? pretty much you give up after five minutes and let it eat you, that's how hard it is. i can't go on like that. so i'm going to make an effort to be thoughtful girl. thinking it through girl.

and also, as an aside, or for the record...this morning my scale said 169. i can't remember if that's ever happened before. it makes that pizza craving a distant memory. thank god.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

"Ooh! Snacks! The secret to any successful migration."

if i could get pizza without having to drive a half hour, i would have a box on my lap right now.

how's your day?

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

"If we all do our parts, believe it, we'll be the ones left standing. Here endeth the lesson."

171. one pound, one day. i can dig it. it's not all that hard avoiding the simple sugars. the structure is just the jolt i needed to be more mindful of what i should be doing. i don't have to cut those things out, i'm choosing to. this is all about choices not directives from on high. it'll do me good to remember that this is what i want.

the peppy pep talk to keep me on the straight and narrow (or the queer and still somewhat wide, whatever) and now for gossip. apparently our trainee lost 125 pounds last year. i don't have a lot of these stories in my real life, people losing a lot of weight and changing their lives in my own neighborhood, it's sort of novel. i would be envious if i saw that she ate more than a pack of peanut butter crackers and a diet soda all day. it makes you wonder if eating a lot of bad food is better or worse than eating a little bad food. i'm just not sure.

on the exercise front, i must be doing more walking because my legs are falling off. it's very cool. there's something very marquis de sade about exercising to lose weight. i like it when it hurts. it makes me feel like i'm working my body hard enough and that lets my mind rest. it's great too because i've remembered my sneakers and haven't have any trouble with shin splints. it's better if it's just my muscles getting a workout and not tearing away from the bone. i hate that. i even hate typing it. if i think about it too much i'll pass out so whenever it pops into my head i have to think about kittens. furry ones. which reminds me there was a beat up looking cat at the dentist this morning (they wanted paying) that i wanted to take home. but it has a collar so it must have a home somewhere. actually, thinking about sad bloodied cats makes me want to pass out too. tricksy sensitive brainses.

that reminds me of my mom and her refusal to watch any part of the lord of the rings trilogy that wasn't hobbits or talking trees. which makes me think of cake, which is bad because i do not want cake. and now i will go read a book so the stream of consciousness thing going on doesn't kill anyone with boredom, or force me to go to the bakery. a few times.

Monday, May 07, 2007

"As a psych major, I'm qualified to go hmmm."

the fluffster hit me up with a thinking blogger award. so here i am being thinky to show my appreciation and to spread the internet peer award sharing love. so far i'm down one for three because there's this button i'm supposed to put up and i totally would if i could figure out how. but i can do the rest. the linking and the tagging, which is one in the same really. i can click that button with the chain and the world on it like a pro.

mal is utterly charming, frank, and a cunning gardener. michelle who is always positive and pregnant and isn't giving up. rachel who will be very much missed. sarah who comments but does not blog, the bitch. and pinky who i've been reading since 2002 (gasp!) and has since gone private but i still heart her pinkness. consider yourselves awarded and/or tagged, you know, if you want.

"Which begs the question, what kind of an unholy creature fancies cheap tasteless statuary?"

today is the day that i'll spend reminding myself why it is that i don't want to eat sugar and bread and all their bosom buddies. carb free. sans carb. carbius limitus. it's sort of difficult, the remembering. i'm thinking i shouldn't have moved the start date so far from the desperate inspiration date but it woudn't have been super fun any day so why get all retrospective now? it's time to be future-spective. like how happy i'll be at the end. not only because hopefully i might lose some pounds, but because i actually followed through on something. whoo! that'll be cool.

i'm starting the week at 172. i'm really quite a talented maintainer. which is why i have to take a firmer stand here, so i can maintain a little lower. this carblessness is not forever. it's not a life sentence, it's two weeks. and then we'll see. (i always make statements like that "we'll see", like i'm a committee instead of one fat girl plotting her future. i foresee a whole lot of parenthetical rambling this week, i must be psychic.)

i don't know where i was going with that paragraph, except to say i'm working the mantra. i had my yogurt for breakfast, a super gross cheese stick. it's almost lunch time and i'm hardly salivating. check me out, i'm rockin' and rollin'. and using apostrophes instead of letters. the hallmark of carefree momentum. ahem.

Friday, May 04, 2007

"who died and made you Elvis"

i just spent a wee sum at gap.com. they send you these damn coupon codes and then you go online and poke around and you end up buying a gorgeous asymetrical belt that won't even hold your pants up. but you have to spend x to get free shipping so you buy some t-shirts too. and then you're upset about it even though you click submit order and just this morning you put on your last clean gap t-shirt and you thought gee i could use some more for the summer. but the point is that it's the company's fault that i like their t-shirts and useless bits of leather. and i know i'm supposed to be mad at them because their sister old navy is ditching plus sizes in their stores but i'm just not. every time i go to my local (and also very small) old navy the (very large) plus section is over run with clearance. it's probably terrible rude to say that 80% of the women i see every day in bangor are overweight, but it's also true. and they're not shopping at old navy, atleast not in the plus section. old navy's bread and butter is volume, maybe they really do get more sales online.

i totally forgot about popcorn by the time i got home last night and then i caught the top of my last post and whoops! now i want some again. if i had a better memory i'd be way fatter. i do remember that we made plans to get mexican tonight. we're going to the place with the tiny flan and i'm very excited. they do a reasonable set menu with the whole works and itty bitty desserts and every time we go i wonder why we don't go more often. which only backs up my theory about short term memory and my ass.

what else, oh, i finally have a menu and a very long shopping list for the whole rocket man thing. i've left nothing up to chance. i'm sort of interested to see how well i do. i've been trying to build a mantra for myself that i really want this. i want to make it work and there's no reason i can't give it a week. i know it's two weeks but i'm trying to take it one week at a time. i'm going to see what works with week one before i do the week two menu. in all honesty i'm not changing that much from my normal fare. the biggest change is the protein, which i've been rambling on about needing to fix but hadn't actually done yet.

and then, the exercise. what good is a stricter eating plan if i spend all my time on the couch thinking about cupcakes? i've taken to jogging in place at home. i started running on the road on weekend mornings, which is awesome and hard and very hilly, but after work and dinner and dishes it's still too dark. so when i'm tired of stepping, i jog in place like a demented richard simmons on a loop. what can i say, it's working for me at the moment. it keeps me from sitting on my butt while i'm watching angel and MI-5. that's the important part to me, the sweating. anything is better than sitting still, no?

Thursday, May 03, 2007

"Now might be a good time for something heroic."

all i can think about is popcorn. with real butter. there's never a movie theater in your house when you want one. i guess i'll have to make my own. this random craving has me thinking of what else i want to eat before i go to space (which, incidentally, is my favorite new code word for dieting. when someone asks why i'm not eating carbs i'll say "i'm not dieting, i'm in nasa. it's all very hush hush."). except for the popcorn and the totally unnecessary desire to finish that box of sugar cereal, i'm not feeling any food cravings. maybe i should fetch the thermometer, check for mysterious rashes, that sort of thing.

"I've been accused of a great many things in my time, but paranoid has never been one of them."

i had a high speed dental appointment this morning. apparently, my teeth are perfect. i have a 4.0 in teeth. only i have too many and i have to get my solitary wisdom tooth removed. apparently it's over-exploded which sounds pretty bad but really is meaningless, atleast in my case. it's just sort of a blip and they want to de-blip me. i always go to the dentist waiting for them to tell me all of my teeth need to be replaced, and i'm always so happy when they don't. i have a tiny, tiny life. apparently.

i got an email from a south beach devotee that says i can still eat yogurt, as long as it isn't full sugar and fat. thanks for the hook-up, that will makes things much easier for me. i've been playing with my menu and it isn't all that different. it's a nice surprise. the fewer things i have to remove the better off i should be, i think. it just occurred to me that i'm treating this like i'm preparing to go into space or something. i wonder why they haven't marketed dieting in space. there's absolutely no way to get cheetos in a rocket. someone is going to make a fortune on the lunar diet someday i'm sure.

to prepare for outer space i've been trying to use less and less sugar in my tea. it's not bothering me at all. it's unnerving to think how much sugar i used to drink in tea. i can't drink it super sweet anymore which is a testament to how you can teach your body new habits. i can't think of any other new habits i've taught my body, except maybe to feel full with less. i'd love to learn to eat more slowly, that one i can't seem to master. i guess i've got the rest of my life to figure it out. sometimes the scope of this life change is a good thing, when you aren't daunted by the ridiculously longness of the rest of your life. atleast we have time to change and grow, there's no finish line for healthy choices. and on that note, i'm so having fruity pebbles for lunch. i feel this need to use up the box before facing the last frontier. see how my teeth like that, eh?

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

"I have heard a few complaints over the years, but then I just killed whoever spoke up, and that was pretty much that."

the week of "still not dieting" is going well. weight is holding, i hardly want to eat everything i see and i'm only doing the smallest amount of compulsive shopping. could you resist these rain boots for your neices, no you couldn't. they're painfully cute. i couldn't resist season one of bones either. david boreanaz is worth it. apparently when i rented it before i missed the last episode with the big ass cliffhanger. if you know what happened to brennan's dad write me, i'll send you cookies, i'm that desperate.

i'm a little short on relevance and long on drama at the moment. there's some stuff going on with matt's family that makes me nervous. like possibly not seeing them very much anymore. but nothing's settled yet. is it wrong to want to have one "family" dinner without a sex conversation? openness is one thing, but grown-ups should have atleast one conversation starter that isn't about sex, like weather maybe. it might indeed be too much to ask, but i refuse to listen to what sexual thing i must do with my dentures in 40 years so i'm making a stink now.

i'm a little surprised that the stress hasn't made me gain. i'm actually noticing my very last pair of 16's getting too big. i don't know how my ancient old navy 16's were staying up when my newer old navy 14's were at my ankles. that's beyond vanity sizing, there had to be a screw up somewhere. but i'm glad they're finally going out the door. i know in my head that the labels on the clothes don't make a difference, i'm really happy to see the back of size 16's in my closet anyway. that number takes me back to the day i tried on some 16's at the gap and they didn't fit. they looked awful. that was before i started this here blog and it was definitely a turning point for me. i still get a bit angry when i try on a 12 and they're maybe a little tight, but now it's only for a minute. i feel now like things are in my grasp and if i really want some pair of pants to fit, i can make that happen. but it's also much less important to me lately.

when i was wearing larger sizes, i shopped all the time. it would be safe to say that i was obsessed. not just with shopping, although i recongnize the importance of that, but also with my appearance. like i was trying to make up for how awful i thought i looked by wearing better outfits. at the time i thought that if i was skinnier i would take the time and wear really excellent clothes. i still have anthropologie bookmarked. obviously i've had to buy clothes as the old ones grew too large but i've lost a bit of the obsession. i'm still clearly insane when it comes to shoes, but i'm not that concerned with the rest of my clothes.

yesterday i was poking around on the anthropologie site and i almost bought a sweater. it was cute, it wasn't debtor's prison expensive, it seemed like the one thing i could buy and probably use well. and then i didn't buy it. i don't need to buy clothes to make me feel good about myself anymore. i might have worn it every day, i might have loved it inside and out, i just didn't need to have it so i left the site. something has changed for me recently about clothes. it seems like the longing is gone. the longing to be like other women, thinner women who don't have to hide themselves, is leaving me.

i'd like to think that i still dress reasonably well, but i don't think about it anymore. i used to spend hours in front of the mirror trying to find something to wear, something that i could leave the house wearing that wouldn't make me cry. trying to find the outfit that would hide the flaws that were the only things i could see. there isn't a black skirt perfect enough to make hating yourself look good, i have looked everywhere. i haven't thought about those days in a long time. i haven't had a morning like that in a long time. i didn't realize until just now how lucky i am to be away from that.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

"I mean, retail? I'd rather be dead. Again."

i dragged matt all the way out to the mall, the shoes were still there, and i didn't buy them again. i'm not sure how much of a victory it is considering all the gnashing of thoughts and all the extra driving, but it does seem like i regained some control of myself. which is good. somehow i wasn't trusting myself about this stupid stupid purchase. i passed them up twice, for a reason. they weren't worth it. like when you think about chocolate all day and then you end up eating some hersheys crap and then it's just wasted calories. i really hope i learned something from all this, i'm drained.

i'm thinking i might try the south beach weeks 1-2 sometime soon. sometime after ye hormones pass. i'm trying to put together a vegetarian menu for it, which is interesting to say the least. eggs, cheese, nuts. oh, and salad. i'm working on it. how many beans can one person eat? i guess i'll find out. i know i've been saying i'm happy with the way i've been eating, that's still true. this is just a jump start thing. a test, if you will. it's not going to be a way of life. i don't think it's very healthy to cut out such a huge chunk of foods (says the vegetarian) forever. i don't think i could do more than two weeks without yogurt and sweetened tea and oatmeal. in moderation, i don't think these carbs are bad for me. i'm just interested in seeing if there's a change and if i can maintain it.

that'll probably be next week. for the rest of this week i'll try to hang on to my 173 and get the last of the sugar cravings out of my system. i'm sort of looking forward to it, probably because it's still so far away. we'll see how i feel on sunday when the bell tolls.