*

10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Thursday, January 31, 2008

"Careful, that pony had a lot of water"

The woman called me a guru and then made the choice to go and start running, and then she actually did it. Talk about inspiring. She kicked my ass for sure because the best choice I made yesterday was to not steal the rest of the boyfriends' ice cream and then pretty much only because he's sick and I don't want his germs. Geez, what a show off.

I didn't have a lot of time for exercise because I had to expend all my energy and sanity searching for my damn cellphone. Because I am a moron. I searched the car twice and I made a sick Matt search the car too. I made him call it forty two times even though it was on vibrate. I kept touching things like the dude in The Dead Zone incase I felt the vibrations through solid wood and or from across the room. I searched every item of clothing and finally after torturing Matt "Ok, what did I wear Monday? What about Tuesday? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW!!!" for hours, I found it in the laundry basket. It had fallen out of the clothes I was so very carefully searching, you know, with my eyes closed.

Right now I'm drinking chocolate soymilk and planning my day. I'm very busy. Brood, brood, check the mail, brood, go for a walk at lunch and buy lettuce, brood, have some fat free pudding, more brooding. It's a little like an Angel episode only with daylight and chocolate pudding. It's very boring at work since I got all uppitty and closed down the banter. It might not be readily apparent but I'm a fun girl. One might even say that I'm the life of the party here at work and it's mighty silent of late. One of those deafening silences that leaves bodies in its' wake.

It would be wrong to say I hold a grudge. I don't hold grudges. I snuggle them to my bosom and feed them from a bottle and fashion tiny pink bows for their hair. It's not a very adult way to be, not something I'm particularly proud of, but not something I can vanish in an instant either. I really want to stop being angry because the stress is killing my back. I'm thinking angry kickboxing wasn't the best way to work out my emotions now that my neck is all tight. I've hit up the pilates twice since then and still, OW. I can hear my mother telling me to meditate and seek therapy and also to take aspirin which I never really understood. I think aspirin was her cure all, her apple a day, while mine is pilates so I'm going to keep trying. I believe that very gentle stretching will eventually conquer all. I really think taking up pilates is the best thing I've ever done, for my body and my mind. Just don't tell Ana that I hate her favorite teaser.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

"You play in the dirt, you get dirty"

Today is all about accepting consequences. How deep of me I know. I don't usually start out posts with, like, a point but I'm trying to grow here. It strikes me that the whole getting out of my comfort zone diet phase was a good move for me in completely the wrong forum. I don't need to eat and exercise substantially differently, I just need to do it all better. I've known that all along and yet I still accept lest than the best from myself on this issue but expect more as a result.

One of the things that has me frustrated with my job situation is that I feel taken for granted. Matt put it really well when he said "you're so good that they hold you to a higher standard". Well crap, he's totally right and in more ways than he knows. I realized I'm taking my body for granted and holding it at a higher standard all at the same time, it's screwing with my mind. I want it to be healthier and thinner and stronger, and I want it to happen even though I'm not giving it all things it needs to make that happen. I want it to perform more with less and also quicker. What a jerk I am. I'd quit on me too, and possibly write a strongly worded letter.

I'm actually a big believer in facing the music. If I make a mistake I say so. If I get pulled over for speeding I don't bullshit the cop, I tell the truth and I've never gotten a ticket. There are two big areas of my life where I am the excuse queen, my job and my weight. It's time for all that to stop. I don't see my friends as often as I should to work a poorly paying job I hate. What is the real cost of that excuse? How does the quality of my life pay for that in the long run? What is the real cost of not exercising every night because there are dishes to do or a new netflix that I can't get off the couch for? There are always going to be dishes to wash and I'm always going to be the fat girl washing them until I summon the courage to make myself work harder. So, the next time I decide I need to rest on the couch or eat a poptart when I'm not even that hungry it will be because I have chosen to stay this weight. If I don't start evaluating every decision and making them count I'm never going to make the sort of progress that I want. And I'll never stop hearing that music-like humming in the distance...

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

"And never hope more than you work."

A fitting quote for today I think. There's talk and there's action and I'm trying to be all active but since the smart thing to do is to be silent for the time being I'm feeling a big conflicted. Or a ton conflicted. An acre of confliction. Matt and I keep talking about things. He's very supportive and telling me all the jump and the net will appear sort of things. I'm not a jump and the net will appear sort of girl, by nature. I would very much like 5 nets and a supplier in line for the 6th. It's apparent to me now that I have trust issues, trusting myself not excluded. It'll be something to work on while I'm sitting home, alone, with no prospects and a hungry cat.

No, not really. I'm being dramatic. As much as it pains me to be the lay-about jobless girlfriend, we will survive just fine and probably the jobless thing won't even happen. It wouldn't be so bad if it did though. I'd like to take some time and volunteer, and write, and find someplace to bake. This is the time to just try stuff. The years I missed out on while I was so busy getting my safety nets all lined up. My father will have a total cow though, being the one who raised me and taught me to go directly to panic, do not stop do not collect 200. I've no idea how I'm going to tell him if I leave with no job on offer. Maybe I'll write a letter and then chuck my phone in the sea.

I'm bouncing around 176, which is a little aggravating but only when I have the time to think about it. It's nice to have vanity a little lower on my priorities for once. I'm a little worried about what will happen if I'm home for awhile. Weight wise that is. I'd like to think I'll spend every minute exercising, I know I'll feel like I should. Like I should get something out of the endeavor and that something should be a smaller ass. I guess it's one of the many things that I will have allow to unfold, to see how it plays. Time to have some faith and some trust in myself. Mantra Mantra Mantra...

Monday, January 28, 2008

uh oh

You know that moment, the one where you reach into the Dove bag and realize all the chocolate is gone and your skinny ass boyfriend didn't eat a bite? Didn't even lick the discareded foil? That is the moment that you get off your ass and hit the stepper before bed because you seriously just ate a bag of chocolate in three days. One for three is not good odds when it's chocolate vs. days of ass sitting.

"No one wins. One side just loses more slowly."

I am in a very bad no good mood today. Aren't you glad you clicked? I'm at this job that I pretty much decided to quit this weekend so it's sort of emotionally trying. The wise thing to do is send out resumes like a freak until something happens and leave with paid employment in my near future. The cold hard truth is that it's easier to get a job when you have a job so I am trying very hard to be patient. I *want* to go home right now and just sell my plasma for food and see what happens. Matt and I concluded that we could live exactly as we are now by simply selling a cord of wood a month and I wouldn't have to be treated like dirt and make him miserable. Apparently that's a bargain for him so that's our safety umbrella in case I lose my shit sometime today.

The entire purpose of getting out of the debt was so I could live on my own terms. The purpose behind saving money on interest and not giving to the man, that is. I realized last week, after a petty battle over a few measly hours of pay (which I lost by the way), that my life will always be like that unless I change it. I have to change it now. The new regime and my current boss don't think I'm worth a 40 hour paycheck, so I'm moving on. It's sort of fascinating in an "oh my god this world sucks" sort of way. Money is such a trap. The more you make the more you spend and then the more you owe. You can't leave a job you hate because there are bills to pay and how will you pay for health insurance and retirement and so what if you hate it you'd better stay so when you're old and sick you won't have to live in a box by the river. Screw that.

I pretty much hate my life right now. Which seems extreme and yet, no, it's perfectly true. If my mother wasn't dead she'd probably disown me for still working here. She hated my job. It's not as though I didn't realize at the time that it sucks and that I'm worth more than working here and yadda yadda. I was young and I had to figure things out and I didn't know what I wanted to do and I felt the debt/safe job circle of hellfire thing I described previously. Now I still don't really know what I want to do but I'm passionate enough about not fucking being here that I feel like opening news doors and testing them out. I could work at Walmart and write about it and lead a more intellectually stimulating life. They'd probably have me arrested and that would be interesting writing too.

All the ire made for a very good kickboxing workout this weekend. The depression, however, made for eating half a bag of dove squares. As long as I fit all the new clothes I bought last week I don't care. I have great dreams of using my new wardrobe to help me get something new instead of keeping my head above water at the new main office. A much worthier pursuit. It's actually all for the best considering what we now know about the new folks. Their various reports and spying and silly rules, it's not a place I want to spend my time representing when I don't have to. I don't have children to feed or a mortgage to pay, I don't have to work for a company too cheap to give seniors free checking accounts. Oh, and the name tags.

I really hate the name tags. I'm standing behind a big ass sign with my name on it, why do I need a name tag? They're probably bugged with GPS. Which reminds me of something I read while bouncing between the self-help and career sections of Borders this weekend that was very affirming: "if you're still wearing a name tag at thirty you've chosen the wrong career path". They can take their cheap and mean business practices and shiny new name tags and shove them up their tightly clenched sphincters.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Jowls a quiver

Busy, busy today with lots to think about. One of my sisters called me yesterday about my other sisters' birthday. She's turning 40 and as you only do that once we thought we might do something special. So, if she's down with getting us for a birthday present, we're going to visit her. It should be interesting, I've never been to Prague and my sisters are always fun. Now I'm in a saving money for travel mood and it's badly timed as I really do need workclothes that don't look like crap. I feel very busy all of a sudden with all of these things on my mind.

But, it's a good day. David Bowie on the radio, Thai iced tea by my side, all is right with the world. It's still solid sugar but it's not a whole meal so it's progress. I'm casually searching for clothes online. It stinks. I think I need a personal shopper. I don't think I can be trusted to shop for myself. I always end up with one hundred black cardigans and since I'm not a 19th century school marm, well, you see my point. It's taken me all day to purchase one pair of pants and a shirt that cost more than I'd make in 4 hours of work. Odds on that one goes back when the desperation switches gears into "oh my god! that much for a shirt!". I should really take up sewing and maybe move to a small house near a prairie.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Pants down, shoes to go!

Just because I haven't received the new pants from the Gap there's no reason not to begin searching for the perfect shoes to wear with them. It's called thinking ahead, can't say I'm not a practical girl. God, I love shoes. I try hard not to be that girl, the girl with a hundred pairs of shoes she never wears, I just can't help it sometimes. A nice man just called me a stylish girl. Which makes me want to shop for shoes even more. He must work for Zappos.

On the habit front things are going well. I'm practicing my internal fat inquisition. Example A: Idle thought "mmm, poptarts" followed by: What time is it? Did I just eat breakfast? Am I going to eat lunch very soon? Am I even hungry? Am I bored? How about some nice tea? Safe to say I've had a lot of tea this morning. I'm also practicing the "well, if you're really hungry have some yogurt/pear/oranges that are so good and will totally go bad if you don't eat them all now".

When I was in high school my sister used to steal my day planner and write silly things at random. Tuesday, March 3, 1998 "consider career in cheese making" Friday, November 12, 1999 "can't pay too much for a good pair of shoes", things like that. She's the same sister who leaves me voice mails like Catherine would if Heathcliff had a cellphone but that's not the point. The point is that I need to take up her example and write in my planner things to remind me much this sucks. On my birthday I will write "Do not ask boyfriend to order you big huge birthday cake, no REALLY!". At random I will scribble "do more pilates, your back will thank you!" and "remember pears, you really like them better than crappy chocolate!". I will also write call sister and sing show tunes off-key because she does that too and what's not to reciprocate there?

Basically, I want to remember how hard this is, I don't want to do this again. I loathe the cliches about how nothing tastes as good as thin feels, instead I want to remember that nothing feels as good as healthy feels. Screw thin and starving yourself and denial and all that, I want to feel strong and confident in my choices again. Ditto my body. It's a good body, it works hard when I ask it to and it's full of muscles and more strength than I give it credit for. No more taking that for granted, no more wasting time thinking I can't do something so why even try. I've been trying for a few weeks to keep my house clean and it's working. I'm reaping the benefits of my efforts to have a neat house, no reason I can't reap benefits of effort all over as long as I don't get in my own way.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Slow motion better than no motion

One of my delightful emailers asked how things were going since I haven't posted a weight in a while. It's true that a lot of people don't post weights when they aren't happy with the numbers. Nothing so dreadful here, just nothing to talk about. I'm hovering where I was previously, 175, and am in no real rush. Well obviously I am, you know, in a rush. In my brain anyway. Thinner! Faster! NOW! In practice I'm sort of taking a break. An eat more pears and take more walks break, but a break none-the-less. I'm still weighing every day because that is what compulsive people do, it's just not very interesting and it gets old reminding myself that zero is happening on the weight-loss front just now.

My priority right now is re-building my habits. I have genuinely missed my routine since I done broke it in December. So that's what I'm doing. I'm eating my oatmeal every morning because that's what I used to do. I'm taking a walk everyday at lunch when it's not subzero because that's what I used to do. Lunches and snacks are as weird as they ever were so I've got to work on that and get something cooked on the weekend that I can take every day for some continuity. Having a good lunch keeps me from wanting snacks in the afternoon so I need to make that a priority and a habit too.

Exercise in the evenings has been a bit derailed since Matt and I have been sick. Since I've been feeling better I've been trying to get something consistent and it's hard. Is it hard because I've lost a lot of fitness? or because I got lazy? or because I still cough an awful lot for a "well" person? Probably all of the above but it doesn't matter because I am re-dedicating myself to shedding some pounds. I'm going to take things like I did when I first started out. If you go from sitting on your butt to stepping 10 minutes a day that's progress. My goal, my very easy and attainable goal, is to do whatever I can do: kick boxing, pilates, stepper, scrubbing the tub, anything physical every night. As long as I can point to one thing I did every night that wasn't sitting on my arse I'll be happy.

The point is to build the habit of exercise back in to my routine. It might not be as much as I was doing but I have to accept that I can't take nearly a month off and expect to jump back in where I left off. I am happy to report, and especially in light of yesterdays' what have I done with my year rant, I can still do five perfect teasers. I want to die after but I can still do it and that means something to me. Maybe my year wasn't wasted after all.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

"I could have sewn the pants myself in this time" "That could be the next Project Runway...err...project"

I have been trying for the last two hours to buy some pants. Gap.com is a cesspool of inefficiency. I am trying to give them my shiny plastic money, why won't they just TAKE IT! The first time I hit order and the thinker started thinking it took so long that one of the things I ordered went out of stock. High waisted trousers in a twelve literally went out of stock whilst the hamsters in my computer ran on their wheel. No loss really, they were just cheap and I'd probably have returned them anyway but seriously if the tenuous fashion item I wanted went out of stock what hope do I have for the nice ones? The second time it timed out and I had to start over. Five minutes of thinky pixel thinking between entering the password and the coupon and the shipping code and I hit continue and it's been seven years and I know it's going to time out again and why does the gap want me naked??? Everytime they update it gets worse. There has to be something more useful for their web department to be doing, like pushing a rock up a hill. And while I'm at it, why do people put the pen on top of the check when they want me to cash it? I mean it, you know I have to pick up the check so WHY go to the trouble of putting the pen on the damn check just so I can pick it up and move it EVERY TIME? >Insert Cathy cartoon screaming here.<

Monday, January 21, 2008

"You always think harder is better."

You know I ended up going to target and buying toilet paper yesterday, I couldn't even bring myself to blog about it. Is that really the best thing I could think of to do with my day? I walked around the mall too and pretty much all I got out of it was the exercise. Even if I was in a mood to buy clothes there would have been nothing to buy, it was all horrible. This wardrobe malaise of mine is coming at a very bad time actually because I have a bunch of fancy work stuff to do in the near future and it would be better to not look like a slob. I guess I'm going to have to buy some clothes, the horror! She says with sarcasm but is truly genuinely afraid of looking like ass in front of new colleagues. No reason I can't find one reasonable outfit, right?

The one thing I can't stop buying is pears. I'm in love with them right now. It's a pear affair. I don't know if it's pear season somewhere or if the stock is just amazingly good this week but I just love them. Even more than cupcakes. The thing about making fancy cupcakes is that I can never bring myself to eat them. They're too cute to eat, I'd rather look at them. Matt's had a good week for snacks though since he didn't spend hours arranging granules of pink sugar. Up hill both ways. Har Har Har. Anyway, how long do you think one could live on pears alone?

Four days till Fativersary 2 with almost nothing of interest to report. Unless the pear fast works out. I shall have to think of something, anything, to say about this year that I can live with. How to sum up these last twelve months of standing still and maybe even going backwards? Where's the positive spin there? So far all I've got is "buttoned a pair of tens and didn't die". Hardly the Nobel Prize of slimming.

"Like riding a psychotic horse toward a burning stable"

Happy Martin Luther King day! I just love bank holidays. I've spent the morning dying my hair and watching Matt Damon movies, all I need is a pint of Ben and Jerry's and it's a party. But then you can't turn over a new leaf and keep the ice cream so I'm working on some iced tea instead. I feel pretty good about it actually, it's a relief to not have to think about food so much. At present I'm mostly thinking about the cold. Why do I make these promises to myself, such as today to spend the whole day outside, and then it turns out to be -9. It's just not right.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Friday, January 18, 2008

In other news

I'm glad I got that bee in my bonnet because it made me completely forget about how I have to start my life over tomorrow. It feels that dramatic. Props to every soul that gets off their stride and fights their way back, it's mighty hard. I really just want the life I had in November. The ease of just exercising all the time because I wanted to and eating what I wanted and having it be all really good for me. On reflection I must have been possessed. Or I'm possessed now. That might be more likely because ever since I mentioned Poptarts that's all I can think about. I'm a tart tart and I just don't know how long I can hold out...mmm...strawberry frosted.

I've already decided to make cupcakes tomorrow. Matt hasn't had a proper sugary treat in weeks and weeks and I'm a little worn out from being a watch dog. I'm going to make cupcakes, they're going to be perfect, and I am going to eat one. I'm also hoping that the snow lets up enough to take a walk because that was really refreshing last weekend. It's supposed to be in the negatives again next week and I want to make the most of the warm enough to be outside weather. I feel like doing something just for me this weekend since it's a long weekend and I have monday all to myself. If I don't have anything specific I need to do in town, I tend to stay home. I usually feel that it's a waste of gas (cough, cough) to run around just because I'm bored. And then I feel like a house bound wretch. Matt says I shouldn't feel bad about doing things I like once in a while, that I deserve to do more with my time out of the house than buying food and toilet paper. He's right, and Bangor is a nice little city and I know next to nothing about it.

I'm always telling myself I need to get out more and now I don't have money as a barrier. If I want to wander around the shops downtown there's no reason I shouldn't. One whole day in the service of nothing in particular, not scrubbing a toilet or washing the floor, would be great. I could even just go to Borders and read their magazines and drink some tea. It would be nice to spend a day not thinking about my budget or chores or how much gas is in the tank. So that's mondays' to do list, stay out of the house. It'll keep me away from the cupcakes too so I'll really be multi-tasking that to do list. Go me.

Deadpan

Did you know that Maine is the most treed state in the U.S.? We're 89% trees! We're pine fresh all over. A little bit of hemlock too. I know that because it seems that hemlock trees are very heavy and it was hard work for Matt and the fam to cut them down and, you know, build a house out of them. I think I had a stronger knee jerk reaction to someone suggesting that I don't care about trees, a powerful renewable resource, than if someone had written "fat bitch" as a comment. I think one could reasonably glean from one post or another that I am in fact fat, and probably a bitch too. I don't think it's reasonable to read one post and make assumptions about my life. It happens all the time and I try not to get too upset about it because I don't have to be here, it's my choice, but I don't think it's reasonable to read two lines of someones site and make a judgement.

Apparently my triggers are money and the environment and that one time about the free range chickens. I think I talk too much about our green tendencies for what is ostensibly a weight loss blog but apparently it's not enough. I think how we live and the decisions we make every day, our priorities, are important for whole health. I don't see the point of making myself healthy and the earth sick at the same time, but I accept that I can't change other people. I don't see the value in buying organic produce at a farmer's market and stopping for a pseudo-sweetened skinny coffee drink from Starbucks on the way home, but if that's how someone else gets through their day what is it to me? It's snowing here today, which means that I will drive home behind 42 SUV's all afraid to hit 30 mph. Do I see the point of buying an SUV to drive like a scared-y pants grandma in a storm...or even say on a perfectly dry road? No! but I just pass them and get on with my day, however bitterly I write about it on my blog.

I really do think it's a shame that more people don't do the little things they could to keep our environment healthy. I think it's more of a shame that people who do try where they can get their asses handed to them by "real" environmentalists. I don't think you get the best out of anyone by focusing on their flaws, real or perceived. I think it's more beneficial to support the positive until it overwhelms the negative into success. And since this whole paragraph, and blog, are dedicated to what I think...I think you have never lived with the fear of your well running dry in a drought. I think you don't know the first thing about trees, or logging. I think you probably believe loggers are evil and deserve to be maimed by spikes hidden in trees by environmentalists for the meager offense of doing their jobs. I think you didn't know what a mistake it would be to suggest that a stranger was a fool to save hundreds of gallons of water on dishes for a few degradable paper plates, the decomposition of which feed the soil where, gasp! other trees grow! A stranger who happens to manage a forest. But, whatever, I hope telling me off made you feel better. The next time we cut down a tree, for fun or profit, I'll think of you!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Resolve, isn't that a carpet cleaner?

One of my unwritten resolutions for this year, next to keeping my house tidy and not buying thirty bottles of face wash just because I have coupons, is to use my favorite things. When I was a kid I had a stockpile of perfect un-used boxes of crayons, which I coveted. I would use the stubby and gross hand-me-down crayons for actual coloring while my pretty ones stayed safely in the drawer. One of the things I will ask my mother, when I die or when we go on John Edwards Crossing Over, is why she, a trained child psychologist, never questioned my insane OCD. But anyway, I still have a lot of those tendencies.

I buy myself adorable little notebooks, never very expensive, and they get put in a drawer. I collect plates and dishes and tea cups and never, ever use them. I can't think of a third thing that I'm obsessive about so that must be progress. In the vein of keeping my house tidy and keeping up with the small things, I've been making myself lists...in one of my notebooks. I've been carrying this one notebook around for ages and therefor it looks like crap and maybe that's why I'm actually able to sully the pages with ink and not have to gouge my eyes out. Anything I have to write down, I write down in there. Notes, grocery lists, meal plans...all the little bits of paper that used to fill my purse, and my counter, and my table and drive me insane are now gone! I have a to do list for every day and I actually refer to it and cross things off. Imagine!

The dish thing is a little more difficult. I'm trying to use more of the pretty things I've bought, at home and at work. I simply can't buy anymore pretty dishes, deal or no deal, until I make some use of the ones I have. We are a simple people at home, we don't use serving dishes as a rule and for most of the fall we used paper to save water. Washing an extra dish for every, uhm, dish doesn't make much sense on an environmentally friendly level. But I do take pride in the food I cook and for one dinner a week I'm going to try and present it nicely and on nice tableware. There is no reason not to enjoy things, why buy them to put them in a cupboard forever? If something is really too nice to use, there's no place for it in my house.

I'm bored of pretending to be a grown up. That is the soul of my resolutions this year. There is to be no more waiting until whenever to do things the way I want to do them. Do it now or give it up. There in lies the crux of my problem with this Spark diet thing. I really wanted it to work for me. I think we all believe in some way that what we're doing isn't the best, or isn't good enough, when we aren't swimsuit models in a week. I'm curious now as to why I thought someone else's diet plan, even a reasonable one with food involved, would work for me. The entire point was to take me out of my comfort zone of sneaking too many cookies and I really think it made things worse. Maybe it was comfort eating, maybe I should consider that possibility.

It was a lot of work to translate their foods into my foods and part of me thinks I'll have wasted the effort if I give up. I've been thinking though that the amount of effort I put in to add organic foods and remove the chemically sweetened and mass produced products is important in another way. It proves that my values are different than theirs. Not all of the foods Spark used in their menus was crappy chemical food, but a lot of it was weird and or very commercial. Eggo waffles and two kinds of Cheerios and I think the yogurt was Dannon. I don't have a problem with any of those things but none of them are things I normally eat.

It could be me but I don't look at an Eggo waffle and syrup and think that's the way a healthy person starts their day. I also don't look at three meals of peanut butter and jelly and think it's a well rounded day (literally, one whole day on their plan was peanut butter and jelly three ways...I wish I was making it up). I have two more days of portioned food and plans and then I'm calling it quits. I'm still hovering around 175 and I guess that's where I'll start from, again, on my own, this weekend.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Eat of my grapefruit and be sated

Since this is, optimistically, a weight loss blog and I'm trying to be all pro-calorie range at the moment why not discuss it in some length? So, the deal according to Spark is that I'm supposed to consume between 1200 and 1550 calories a day. It's based on my current weight and 5 hours a week of exercise, at a minimum. Safe to say I haven't had that much exercise in the last few weeks so I'm trying to stick to the lower end. Yesterday came in just under 1600 and the day before was about 1400 although I might be over-estimating those two licks of chocolate mousse. I have input all of the proposed choices for today and have come to only 730 calories. Which has me thinking "Ooooh, what can I eat?".

It's probably good for me to mull it over here since I sort of hate it. Part of me feels like I haven't given it enough time to know if I really hate it. It might turn out that I hate it but find it works really well in the end, in which case I'll have to suck it up. The other part of me is hoping I hate it and it doesn't work because then I could be fat and justified in my anger. I've only had two half-assed weeks of logging food and counting calories and it burns.

I've been trying to be positive about it, looking ahead and all. In reality most of the time I look to the next damn meal which is not healthy. I find I think a lot about what I should eat, and what I could eat instead and in the instance of today what can I eat to fill up my calories. I'm not loving it. I miss the old way I used to eat, when I would have a day like today and end at 730 calories and be completely satisfied because I didn't know any better. It brings up a lot of questions.

I worry about how many days I ate less than 1000 calories and exercised for an hour. Even though I didn't get super skinny, could I have been damaging my health and not know it? On the other hand, under the old regime, I never went around feeling hungry. If I was hungry I ate something and didn't have long philosophical calorie conversations with myself over it. I just ate something and went on with my life and didn't have to think about it for hours and hours.

HappyBlogChick linked me up an article on flexible restraint, and while I was reading it I was like Hello! this is what you used to do that you really loved. Really loved and had very slow success with. Early December I decided that I needed more exercise, that I had reached an exercise plateau and that's when I added kickboxing. I love Pilates and how strong it makes me feel but kickboxing makes me sweat like in a health club commercial. Then the holidays came and then I got sick and somewhere along the way I decided to do this Spark thing. I don't know that I gave the increased exercise much of a chance to do it's thing, not in the optimal conditions anyway.

I have to admit that this test period has been sort of crappy too. I haven't been doing anything to par if I'm really honest, not since before my birthday. I don't know how long I need to keep it up before I can tell myself it's ok to quit and go back to what I used to do. In the end I have no one to answer to except myself so why am I dithering? If I want to eat oatmeal for breakfast and instant breakfast for lunch, a cookie out of the oven when I'm baking and pizza for dinner every few weeks why shouldn't I? I should definitely add a salad and some fruit but I don't need spark to tell me I should have half a banana and one cup of melon balls.

I don't know if it's good for me or not to be talking myself out of this. I always feel like I need more structure and then when I undertake it I'm always compelled to rebel. I don't know what that says about my capacity for lifelong success.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

''I was busy shoveling coal into my styrofoam factory. Enjoying some roast penguin.''

Do you ever have a day where your perfect horoscope would read: You will be unreasonable today, probably because you're high on sugar. You'll also want to avoid operating heavy equipment or logging into sparkpeople.com because it will make you cry. It's probably the excess of the guilt as I mentioned in the previous comments. It's filled up my body and is drowning my brain right now. What would Jesus eat? Jesus would not have chocolate mousse cake for breakfast and then follow it up with Thai food for lunch. Jesus is much better at tracking his spark food than I am and Jesus prefers Chinese anyway...'specially the crab rangoon. Loaves, fishes, cream cheese...excellent.

Clearly I'm a nutcase today, an overfed crazy person with a strong desire to nap. I had all these awesome plans for today, awesomer than napping. I was all into kickboxing tonight. It's kickboxing night you see...it's on the calendar. It's set in stone and sturdy sneakers. I'm trying very hard to be the person who has a list and who does all the things on her list every day. It's actually working out very well. I love writing things down and crossing them off with a flourish like eating breakfast is an accomplishment. I suppose now it is an accomplishment, as long as it's not cake fulfilling the requirement.

I'm feeling a little guilty over the choices I have made today. I re-rigged my day on spark so that my calories are pretty darn close to the top of my range. It's not reasonable to expect that I won't eat anything for dinner and I can't start my day over so it will just have to do. And you know, my range is well below a normal 2000 calorie diet so it's not like I ate 42 cheeseburgers for lunch and am trying to pass it off as normal. Today is a little high in calories but yesterday was low and maybe I don't need the inner "you suck" dialogue all day. It's not a co-worker's birthday every day and I didn't spend all last night baking and whipping and melting to not have half a small piece of cake today. Three bites of chocolatey deliciousness and a tofu stir fry have my brain spinning like I ate three meals at the Golden Corral meat buffet.

I didn't need to eat cake for breakfast but I don't need to over-react. It hardly ever helps when I freak out over one thing. There's most of a cake left back there and I so don't need to have any more, better to just get over it and look forward to my kickboxing to dig myself out of this deep ass calorie hole.

Monday, January 14, 2008

"you know what the next season is, locusts"

I'm back to wearing my sexy, sexy long johns today. I was getting used to the mid-thirties, I even took a walk yesterday in the out of doors. Friday we had a really interesting and bizarre thunderstorm and now it's snowing again and we're supposed to get 14 inches. Weird, weird, weird. It was a good weekend though, particularly for exercise for which I was rewarded with 174.8 this morning. Slow and steady wins the frustrating as all hell race. Better than nothing, that's what I keep telling myself, better than nothing.

The clothes shopping was pretty horrendous though. I was unprepared in the way that you are when you know you're fatter but you don't really know how fat you are and whoa! then you go shopping and get the dread dressing room clarity(tm). Dressing room clarity syndrome symptoms include thoughts like "wow, the twelve has gotten smaller" "this must be a mislabeled ten" "all the sodium in that yogurt smoothie I had for breakfast must be making me fatter and is certainly only temporary". I did know I was fatter, I was hovering nearer 170 when I bought and zipped and danced in that pair of size tens. Behold the power of 5 extra pounds, its' heart is cold as ice.

That five pounds is probably why I hate all my clothes in the first place. If it wasn't for Old Navy and their 75% off clearance I'd have never considered buying clothes at this stage. I'd be sitting here blissfully in my ignorance, possibly drooling with complacency, and now I have all this stupid reality to think about. Selfish bastards. I really wish I could do all the healthy eating and sweaty exercise and not need the sorry ass self hate for inspiration. I'm just realizing that I lose the most when I genuinely loathe my appearance the most, I'm not so sure I should be inspired that way.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

I heart Target clearance

Matt has contracted the virus that time forgot. I keep thinking about the damn cold like it's been around since the dawn of time, harassing would be dieters and dinosaurs and the like. I'm picturing a pair of Pterodactyls flying over a Brontosaurus, and then the Brontosaurus sneezes and falls over dead and the Pterodactyls say to each other "he should have used those disinfectant wipes" and the other one says "yup" and then they fly away. Which is why I had to go to Target and get "Puffs Plus, the ones with the lotion" for my boyfriend. And it was just the best Target run ever. Everything I wanted was orange tagged and rang up at less. It was like fate that I be at Target today. It's so wonderful to be better, I scarce have words. Not only to go shopping and not need a nap but to be able to plug in some kickboxing and be able to do it.

I wasn't going to do kickboxing yet but I just felt like it and I figured if I got tired I'd just stop or take it easy or whatever. I didn't have to, it was great. I'm hoping to have a much better numbers week now that I can exercise for real. That'll add to my inspiration since clothes shopping really sucked today. I stopped at Old Navy to get some reallllly cheap tank tops for working out and tried on some painfully cheap pants that I couldn't buy because they did not fit, not even the twelves. I mean, they buttoned but they didn't look good. They looked like the pants that you try on that make you go on slim-fast, not the ones you love to wear after 2 years of weight watching.

That could be how I got through kickboxing, sheer post shopping desperation. Works for me. Next up Pilates after I've finished some house cleaning...just like a normal saturday before that Brontosaurus coughed on me.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Feeding Suggestion

Whoops! I came back in to edit again my totally screwed up post from this morning and lost it, which is probably fine because it was a stinking mess. Update from yesterday, I totally agreed with Sarah and didn't try to eat a day's worth of protein in one meal. I would have had to eat an entire cow to catch up and it was easier to just eat my damn salad and get over it.

I had written before that I hate all my clothes and am super determined to get to the next size so I can go shopping. I think vanity really is my impetus and why not take advantage? If that's the thing that lights a fire under my ass to stick to my plan and my journal and get some serious exercise every day, why not be vain? Right now I should be taking a walk but it's raining, freezing rain raining. It's got me feeling very housebound and maybe I'll feel like working off some steam when I get home. I know I'll sleep better for it. It'll be nice to feel exhausted from hard work as opposed to just being ill.

Since I couldn't take a walk at lunch I did my grocery shopping instead. I spent the least I've spent for a week of food in months. Funny how when you plan things work in your favor. And seriously if my windows crash again I WILL GO INSANE. At home I keep losing my screen, it just keeps going black...but with all the programs still running. It's great fun, like windows roulette. I almost had a weigh-in roulette too but I guess I was just distracted. I always do the weighing thing after my shower and today I did it wearing my towel. Wet terry cloth is damn heavy. Sans towel I had a weigh in of 175.6 which is fine considering the vast amount of sugar I ingested yesterday.

That reminds me of how I ended the post I lost, the twenty cups of tea thing. I did the math and realized that I could have had twenty cups of tea for that damn bottle of orange soda. I'd probably have to seal my teeth with the stuff they use on driveways but still, that's value for money. I decided that I need to look at all bottled drinks that way, do I need to waste that many calories on a beverage? While I was killing time at the grocery store I poked around in the breakfast aisle and sort of spread that epiphany around. Long ago and far away I used to get myself strawberry frosted poptarts for breakfast. Not all the time, because I was broke...not health conscious, but enough that now looking at the calories makes me sort of want to cry. 200 calories per tart. And you know you're going to eat two because they package them that way. How many people take the superfluous tart and wrap it up for tomorrow? Exactly, no one does that. Makes my pre-sweetend instant oatmeal look like it's wearing wings and a halo. Which is what I was after, validation for my choices. It's good to have perspective when you're teetering on the edge of a snack attack.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Sunkist is the Devil!

I've been living the whole day like it's the 9th and apparently it's the 10th. Which means that I needed to use two pints of whipping cream, yesterday. I guess I'm making ice cream tonight and hopefully it won't kill us. It's been a little strange and a little good that I haven't had the energy to bake a damn thing in weeks. I really don't need to face a fresh plate of cookies every night right now. I have to admit I'm having a bit of difficulty with my Spark plan thing. Case in point, I just finished off a bottle of sunkist orange soda. My throat was scratchy and I just wanted bubbles and the orange label makes you think it's all citrus-y and healthful. Healthful, I must be brain dead. One bottle has 2.5 servings. Each serving has 130 calories. I just drank 325 calories because I was too lazy to make myself a 15 calorie cup of tea and get over it. Of all the horrible things to think, I would have been better off with a can of coke for half the calories.

Then we got the gift of thai food for lunch. I don't want to say that today is pretty much sunk, but it pretty much is. I'll have the salad I made for lunch for dinner and I can account for the calories in the soda but it leaves me nothing left to add some protein to my day. Is it better to eat some protein and go over my calories, or stick to my guns and run low on protein? Part of me thinks that I used to make no allowance for protein in a healthy diet so what's one day? The other part of me thinks it's better habit-wise to eat all the healthy food I'm supposed to eat like nothing happened and just take the hit on the scale if it comes. I can't decide.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Is it cheaper without the novocaine? 'Cause that's the deciding factor.

I started my day with sparsely medicated tooth drilling, how y'all doin? Seriously, how cheap can I get. It really wasn't that painful, I just kept chanting about savings and having these Scrooge McDuck fantasies about rolling in piles of gold. I was really thinking that this isn't all that different from getting ink drilled into your skin for a tattoo, and I did that on purpose without drugs, so what's to complain about. It's over now and I can add it to my littany of suffering tales in case I ever have children.

What else, what else...oh, yeah, 175.4. How much do I love that? A lot. I lost a whole pound and that was before I got all that heavy, heavy tooth decay drilled out of my head. It's wonderful because I was thinking how depressing losing 27 pounds would be, and then how slightly less depressing losing 26.4 pounds would be, and now I'm fumbling toward depressed but medicated and going to therapy. I feel less like I've lost ground while being sick. I felt really bad about that, it's hard to accept it was out of my control, which makes me feel worse about goofing off when I'm not sick. Too late to do anything about snacks of yesteryear, I can only plan better in the future.

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about goals and looking around my house for things I can improve. I'll be a Target wet dream this weekend when I go and clear out their home organizing section. I'll need some spackle too because some of my wall art choices leave a lot to be desired. Funny how things you have that were "so cool" hanging in your dorm room just don't translate after a few years. In to storage it all goes, before I snap and start a bonfire in the driveway. Which would totally melt the ice and be very cathartic but I'm just not crazed enough yet. Maybe monday when I realize that removing the clutter from the shelves means so much more dusting. Another deciding factor.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

News I can't help but link to

New Hampshire is running out of ballots in Democrat strongholds, suck it Romney.

Girls who think they're low on the social ladder more likely to gain weight?

Grammar mistakes are more than just annoying to blog readers, unfortunately.

"Thin line between heaven and here."

This is the fourth time I've started to post today and the first time I'm doing so while eating past date organic yogurt. That could be the secret to my success right there. Buy expensive ass food, let it go way past date, and then eat it at work so when you die there are witnesses. Oh, and blog about it. December 28 2007, that wasn't actually that long ago and those dates are really just a suggestion. I'll eat it fast so I can't think too much about it.

I'm having one of those evaluate all the foolish things you do sort of days, but I'm doing it at 176.4 so it's like .6 of a pound less demoralizing. That sort of sounds harsher than I intended, I'm feeling very positive about what I want to do this year. I'm trying to be objective in identifying the things I want to change and work on. One of those things is that I don't want to be a pseudo religious militia freak hoarder anymore. I'm going to try very hard to buy only the things on the grocery list that are needed for that week and use coupons/sales only for products that can be used in the near future. I'm not so broke anymore that I have to count pennies like that, not for everything anyway. You don't save any money when you end up tossing things later on. And it'll free up space in my house and cupboards so that's always good.

At some point I guess I need to compile a list, a genuine goal list that I can refer to through out the year. I've already entered "check house for piles" at the end of every month in my day planner. I'm going to add "watch stockpiling" right below it. I said I wanted goals that went beyond skinny/not skinny and that's what the list will be. Somethings don't work as well on a calendar, things like "make your house more stylish".

I'm always talking about the apartment like it's so temporary it's barely worth washing the floor. We'll be here for at least another year and at some point I decided I want to like it. I sort of forget that it's under my control. If I hate the bookshelf I can get a different one, or if the lamps and tables drive me crazy I can take them to goodwill and start over. I've been thinking recently that maybe I don't have to have every book from college at hands reach in my living room. Maybe that doesn't meet my needs anymore. 'Course Matt will die when I come home with 200 rubbermaid tubs full of books for him to store but he loves me and I'm confident he'll suffer that injustice in silence if it makes me happy enough.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Fur reigns supreme

Chairman Meow can now sleep on unsuspecting chests everywhere! Thanks Kirsten!

Monday, it happens every week

Maybe I'm just a wimp, that's probably it. I thought I was all better and I was just holding myself back so I did about 8 seconds of Pilates on saturday. I got through three breaths of the hundred and that's it. I completed not another thing, I'm officially still trashed. This damn virus burned my village and salted the earth and I HATED it.

That is officially the last I am going to say about this evil, horrible virus. I'm going to move on to whining about the evil, horrible scale that read 177 this morning. Bastard has no compassion. It seems I'm only a gold medal maintainer when I can exercise during the week. Whatever, it's over. I'll take a nice relaxing walk at lunch since it's extra warm out and I'll be back to kickboxing soon enough. And, of course, I have a pre-packed, measured out lunch and snacks all ready to roll, it feels a little I'm heading to my first day of school.

To take my stepping out of my comfort zone just a little bit further, I added a food journal of sorts. Actually it's more of a list. I wrote down all the things that I plan to eat today, all the calories and protein and yadda yadda are already calculated elsewhere...it's just a long list of food. It seems like a very long list for someone who's supposed to be "dieting". It's a little weird, to look at my day in food and think it's too much. It's a little worrying that I'm looking at a normal healthy day of calories and thinking it's too much. I think maybe my comfort zone was a little disordered and it's probably good for me to re-evaluate things.

I need my forever plan to be healthy as well as reasonable and do able. This is very much a work in progress.

Friday, January 04, 2008

"I throwdown in the kitchen, amongst other places"

I cleaned my house last night. It's so clean, in fact, that Matt said he didn't feel at home. He's pining for the junk. Or maybe it's because I put all his stuff in a box and burned it. No, not really. I told him to eat it because it's taken me 10 months to get the house to have a semblance of the order and cleanliness to which I aspire. As much as I like stuff, I like space more and I'm just plain tired of living between piles of crap.

In the way of what to write on your weightloss blog when you're waiting for your grandiose start date (which normally is bullshit and I'd like to think I'd call myself on it but this here is a genuine icky, mouth-breathing, must rest necessity) I've been pondering what I want my life to look like, you know, in the future. I want to be the person who just washes the two plates and a pot instead of saying I can do that tomorrow. I want to be the person who just opens the bank statement and files it instead of making a pile six months high first. Those seem like little do-able things to me. Actually, have any of you seen the movie Proof? I want to be the anal retentive sister with the list in her day planner but I think that might be too much to ask for.

How can I exercise every night and be too lazy to wash dishes and sort a days' worth of papers? It's the sort of laziness that makes more work for you in the end, which makes me wonder what kind of laziness doesn't make more work for you in the end. I have no answer so I guess I should just stop being lazy because it's illogical. Ha. The truth of the matter is that I trained myself to be a person who exercises every night and not to eat every cookie I bake and I can train myself to be a person who works tasks as they come. I trained the goldfish to eat off my finger, I can train me to throw away old receipts. The IRS will not care that I bought soymilk and yogurt in June of '06. If I could write that off I'd have found a way by now.

It seems to me that I've had an epiphany of late, possibly since my birthday, that maturity isn't going to come find me and tap me on the shoulder like Ed McMahon or the Grim Reaper. I have to, like, make the decision to act on it all on my lonesome. I've been waiting for my life to fall into place when, uhm, I've been the one at the wheel the whole time. Little things big things, I put them all on the backburner for no real reason. I'm not curing cancer in the interim, I'm twidling my thumbs thinking about what I'll do someday. Screw that, this is a year of doing and acting even if it is just a year of having a neat house I'm proud of. I'm out of debt, I can change jobs if I want or take a trip, start a business or write a spy novel. I want to do something for me this year that isn't just about getting into shape. Something in addition to that. Something to further my petition for adulthood. In my own mind anyway.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Yeah, that was me

Welcome PastaQueen readers! I've never been prouder of falling on my ass so many times that I had to resort to crawling on my hands and knees! Little did I know the fame embarassing myself publicly could bring. Actually, it should read more like a public service announcement. The moral of that story is for heaven's sake wear boots with traction, or spikes. And that time I got my bare hand stuck to a doorknob a la Flick in The Christmas Story? The moral there is to wear mittens when it's -20. How about my boss' husband just called to say he broke part of his mustache off after wiping his face while shoveling. I don't have a moral for that one, or a mustache. Maybe he shouldn't either.

You'll find my whole fat history here. Thanks for coming by!

Circle Slash Whining

I feel better today, gamboling kittens and rays of sunshine better. It's awesome because I was getting tired of my sorry whining ass. I was getting tired of sitting on my sorry whining ass too. The evening stretches long before you when all there is to look forward to is coughing and Nyquil. I really missed my hour of exercise every night. I can't even believe how much of a cliche I am right now, but, making and achieving that goal every night adds to my life. I feel a little bit lost out of my routine, more than I would have expected. Another thing to add to lessons learned in 2007: I like my life better when I'm exercising.

'Course that doesn't mean I'm going to pull out my Pilates mat tonight. I think I'll stick to doing dishes and bathing myself for hardcore heart racing cardio. At least until this weekend, it'll be a see how things go sort of thing. I'm looking forward to tracking my week with Spark, which I had meant to start last weekend. I picked up a lot of their meals and snacks and I made myself a good plan for next week. I have out all my measuring tools and tupperware and I'm going to pre-package a week's worth of food. It sounds so dorky and sad typed out like that. Honestly though, do we think Jennifer Aniston looks like she does because she pours an overflowing bowl of fruity pebbles for breakfast? No, she really doesn't and who should? Exactly. So I shall be a measuring freak, dorkyness be damned.

I guess I'm feeling more like giving it my all. I suppose we all feel like that the first week of January and then we get back in our old grooves. A few weeks ago I wrote about prodding myself out of my comfort zone. That's what the Spark diet is all about. It's not that I think they have an answer, a magic pill. It's a tool to use to make me switch things up, to treat food as a fuel and exercise as a way to burn it. Prod prod prod. I have to realize that if all the things I do, and like to do, worked to help me lose weight...err...I wouldn't still be a grumpy fat girl. I maintain excellently and when the time is right I'll kick some life maintenance ass. To make the time right I have to work harder and plan harder and be accountable and willing to change. No more excuses, in the end they only hurt me.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Not a tough cookie

I'm so tired of being sick. So tired that I should be taking a nap right now instead of typing. Or two naps. It's not getting worse but it's not getting better either. I'm stuck in the hellish middle with only my martyrdom for company. I'm not even losing any weight from my tea and ice cream diet which is frankly shocking! The virus must weigh 6 pounds. Atleast. There's no way that I sneezed myself up to 176 snot forsaken pounds. Moaning burns calories, fact, so there can be no other explanation.

I keep thinking I should be doing a year in review but traditionally, or the one time, I do that at the end of January for my fat-i-versary. Which leaves me with nothing. Actually, not nothing. Feeling like this gives me a deep and sobering appreciation for the good health I had in 2007. I stopped taking care of my body during a very stressful time of year and I got wallopped. The rest of the year I ate well and exercised well and felt extremely well. I need to be more appreciative of how good my body feels every day, you know, after I get better.

I know Matt is more appreciative of me already, having to do everything himself and there being err...no food in the house. He'd never whine about having to cook his own dinner but I know he'll be happier when the old cooking/baking regime returns. It's nice to know your contributions are noticed and missed.

So overall I'm starting the year feeling appreciated, fat and more ready to exercise again than I'd ever have thought. It's not so bad. I could be mourning a new perm or something.