Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Hershey does not mean chocolate in this instance...

Yesterday went pretty well, all considered. By the time I got home from work I had a screaming case of the Hershey Squirts. TMI, I know, but I promised to be honest and all revealing, so… I think I overdid it on the grapes yesterday afternoon. I was so hungry! Grapes are usually best for me in rather small quantities or else I get bad cramps or worse (green grapes really kill me, so I stick to red seedless). But I was trying to drown out the calls of EAT ME from the mini Kit-Kat bars in the lab’s candy bowl, so I kept eating the grapes. Perhaps I should have had a few rice cakes and some water. Well, lesson learned. I almost did a “do-over” weigh in this morning, figuring I must have lost at least 6.5 lbs in poop alone, but I decided not to.

I had intended to just have a bowl of corn flakes for dinner; I had an anxiety/depression attack on the drive home and cried for about an hour over the sad and pathetic state of my life. I was over it for the most part by the time I got home, but our roommate made boxed Mac & Cheese for dinner, and so I caved and had a good sized bowl of it. I did manage to stay away from the one remaining dark chocolate brownie, and I was proud of myself for that; however I must confess that I went looking for it later, but it was gone.

This morning I had another Greek yogurt (strawberry banana) with about 2 tablespoons of granola; I also had a packet of instant grits and remembered my packed of Truvia today! Much, much better than yesterday. Today is chicken enchilada day in the mill’s Café, so that will be lunch along with a scoop of Spanish rice and a diet Coke. I brought a Fuji apple for a snack along with an Atkins Advantage snack/light meal bar in Caramel Double Chocolate Crunch. They are super yummy with 11g of fiber and 10g of protein for 160 calories; plus they make me very thirsty so I drink more water. I already ate my dessert in the car this morning on my way to work because I was literally falling asleep at the wheel and needed something to wake me up! So, my two chocolate covered graham crackers are already history. (frowny face)

About weigh-ins – I try not to weigh myself every day. The CEO of Weight Watchers says he weighs himself every day, but I just think that is setting me up for anxiety and a roller coaster of emotions. Maybe men can do that, but women’s weight fluxuates so much! It all depends on if we are retaining water, or not. Bloating, or not. Near a period, on a period, just finished a period, or not. Etcetera, ad nauseum. So I try to limit the checking of my weight to two to three times per week. I weigh at the same time every day (right after waking up) in the same clothes (birthday suit), preferably after my morning bodily functions. I always use my Monday weight as my “official” weight.

Oh! By the way, the pumpkin pie Pop Tarts? Awwweesoooommmeee! I still don’t have the points for them, but oh my yes they do substitute for pumpkin pie just fine. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

TTFN.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Still Workin' It...

I didn’t do as well last week as I could have.

This is what I always do. I get a little success then I start slacking off and sabotaging myself. It’s extremely frustrating, and more than just a little annoying.

This time, however, I am feeling quite calm about it. I looked back over my week and I ate out a lot more than I should have (crisp meat burrito and sour cream from Taco Time, chicken sandwich and fries from Burger King, the Jumbo Breakfast Platter at Jack-in-the-Box to name a few) and didn’t eat what I should have at home. Fast food is a real challenge for me. One of the reasons I like WW is that if I feel that I must absolutely have fast food lest I perish from the Earth, I can work it in occasionally.

Message to brain: OCCASIONALLY ≠ WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT. I know this is a hard concept for you to grasp; 30+ years of this thinking is hard to retrain, but retrain we must.

I am back on plan this morning, even managing to grab what I needed for today’s lunch and snacks! Here is the plan for today:

Breakfast: I got some more Chobani Greek yogurt w/fruit on the bottom; today’s random selection: peach. I added a few tablespoons of granola to it for crunch. I also had a single serving packet of instant grits as a change from oatmeal. It was great until I added a packet of Splenda to it; my lovely grits went from thick and yummy to instantly runny and water-y. Weird. Splenda is not my sweetener of choice; I prefer Truvia but I forgot to grab some this morning. So, I only ate about half of it before it went into the garbage.

Lunch: I brought bbq beef, half corn/half whole wheat tortillas, cottage cheese, butter lettuce and red seedless grapes.

Snacks: Beef jerky, mini-Bonnie Bell light cheese, and three Newton Fruit thins in Lemon Crisp (that’s all that’s left in the package).

This all comes complete with a confession: I found something naughty at Wal-Mart yesterday and tried very hard to pass it up. Fail. It seemed that every corner I turned, this product was staring me dead in the face! I took it as a sign and put it in my cart. Wanna know what it is?

Frosted Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts.

Hear me out: I LURVE pumpkin pie. Every year one (or possibly three) of Costco’s humongous pumpkin pies lands in our kitchen. I like to eat it straight out of the package with a spoon. Crap – did I say that out loud? I meant that I fully intend to have a small, humble piece but wind up eating it straight out of the package with a spoon. Dang. I said it again. Well, anyway, I thought that perhaps these might help me out. I haven’t done the points on them yet, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, it would be better to have two of those than an entire pumpkin pie from Costco eaten with a spoon. (DANG IT! It’s like autocorrect on your iPhone – it just keeps spitting that out!) I will let you know how it rates and how it tastes and if it fulfills a need or just makes the need worse.

Anyhoosiers, I am just .8 of a pound off from my goal of 2lbs per week. The big drop and small backslide kind of evened each other out (unfortunately – and that is not meant to sound like it’s an acceptable achievement). And I did get some pretty good exercise by helping our roommate build a shelter for the goats we are babysitting on Sunday.

We shall see how things go this week.

TTFN.

Monday, October 15, 2012

First weekend...

Well, so far, so good. I weighed myself this morning and the scale said: 332.6. Yay!

I haven’t been able to afford to officially join WW yet, but I’m doing my best to follow the plan. I bought a few groceries this weekend: Chobani 0% Greek yogurt w/fruit on the bottom; butter lettuce; baby carrots; single serving bags of 94% fat free popcorn; apples, pineapple. The Chobani yogurt was interesting. I love yogurt, but this is different than say, Yoplait or Fit and Trim, or any of the other non-Greek yogurts out there. It’s thicker and has got more “bite” to it, if you know what I mean. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But it grew on me, and I think the difference is that it is not so sweet and candy-like. I think that the more I eat it, the better it will get. I only purchased three containers just in case. But I will definitely be trying more, and I will try other brands as well. One six-ounce container is 4 WW points: 0 fat, 22g carbs, 0 fiber, and a whopping 14g of protein! I had the black cherry today.

I also had a packet of instant oatmeal with apples and cinnamon, which after the yogurt tasted overly sweet and fake. I will probably switch to plain oatmeal or instant grits to see if that is better.

A very nice person, Betsey C., left a comment for me – thanks Betsey! She brought up a point that gives me a lot of trouble when I am trying to keep track of what I’m eating: home cooked food. I live with my sister, bro-in-law, and a family friend. When my sister is not forced to be down in the Portland area, she makes wonderful home-cooked meals for us. The problem is how to count it! I could look up each ingredient in the meal (casserole, slow cooker, etc.) and try to figure out how many servings of what size the meal should make, then try to figure the points. But, realistically speaking, we all know that is just not going to happen. I find this to be very frustrating and it’s usually what knocks me right off the program. When I was living alone in Montana I usually ate prepackaged (frozen) Smart Ones or Lean Cuisine meals, or foods that I could easily find the Points value for (fast food or prepackaged).

Some months ago I went to my doctor to see if there was anything she could recommend to help me with my weight loss. To be honest, I was hoping for miracle pills, speed or similar. She gave me this weird plate looking thingy that basically helps with portion control. My response was to throw it in the back of the truck where it stayed. I guess I will dig that out and start using it when I eat the home-cooked meals; I may not know exactly how many Points I’m eating, but it will help me to keep my portions in check. This is very hard to do when she makes chicken enchiladas! Yum yum yum.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to deal with home-cooked meals that you don’t make yourself or have any control over? I am not going to sit at the table with a frozen Lean Cuisine when my sister has made dinner for us; I feel that is rude. Like going to dinner at a friend’s house and bringing your own food. Not cool.

Today’s plan for lunch is to go to the mill’s café and get a scoop of their lovely chicken salad (chicken, celery, cucumber and honestly not a lot of dressing) to eat with my rice cakes, butter lettuce salad (with dressing on the side), baby carrots, and fresh pineapple for dessert. I’m going to pop a single serving bag of 94% fat free Kettle Corn just before leaving the lab to eat on the way home. I’m usually starving by the time I finally get home, so hopefully that will help.

I’ll let you know how that went.

I'm happy with the weight loss, especially after this weekend.  Pizza on Friday night (Papa Murphy's 5 Meat Stuffed), chicken teriyaki bowl on Saturday, leftover pizza on Sunday.  Sunday was horrible as I lay in bed with a weather-induced migraine.  It's finally raining here in the Pacific NW after almost three straight months of sunshine, and my noggin' don't dig the weather changes.  I expected a very small loss or at least staying the same, so the nearly four pound loss was a nice surprise!
TTFN.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

New attitude, holding steady...mostly...

As promised, my food journal from late Tuesday through Wednesday. It wasn’t great, but it would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t been paying closer attention to my eating habits.

Tuesday night I split an order of Super Nachos from our absolute favorite Mexican place in Milwaukie, OR – Super Burrito. It consisted of chicken, refried beans, sour cream, cheddar cheese (the real stuff, not the canned nacho cheese “sauce”), avocado, and corn chips. Normally I would have eaten a whole order by myself, but this time I just split one order with Mom. I was completely satisfied without feeling like I was going to barf or split in half like I usually do because I ate too much. I also had half of a 7-11 brand Berry soda (approx. 10oz) and four Kirkland brand dark chocolate/cherry/almond patties that are about the size of a half dollar. OMG – they are BAAAAAADDD! I could have easily scarfed down the entire container!

Wednesday: I had a severe headache and had to drive Mom downtown Portland at 8:30am to the court house for a very stressful appointment. I skipped breakfast – very bad. We finally ate at a Shari’s Restaurant at about 11:30. I had a Garlic Swiss Mushroom burger; I took off the top bun and ate it open faced with a knife and fork. They were very chintzy with the mushrooms! I had tater tots (looooooove the tots) instead of fries; there were about 10 of them. I had ice water to drink. For dinner I had a bowl of vegetable won ton soup from Trader Joe’s; didn’t eat the veggies. Had the other half of my Berry soda; five more chocolate/almond/cherry patties.

So, not brilliant, but normally this would have been much, much worse. Take my choice for breakfast today for example. Went to Jack in the Box; got the Sausage Croissant sandwich (15 pts), 10 mini churros (Why? Why do I feel I need those? 19 pts), and a bottled water. 34 points for breakfast alone; I should get between 38 and 47 points for the WHOLE DAY. Not a great start.

But I will get better.

I AM DETERMINED.

Ate my Lean Cuisine pizza, a small side salad w/ranch dressing on the side (I put my fork in the dressing then spear my lettuce), three lemon Newton’s Fruit Thins, bottled water.

I am starving.

Dang. Not sure what I will be eating for dinner; will do my best!

TTFN.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Day One of New Attitude

OK, even though I haven’t been able to officially join WW yet, I am doing my best to work on my habits. First habit to work on: food journaling. I do really well in the beginning, and I do really well from morning until I leave work, but then I just can’t seem to continue after I get home.

I will do my best to change that.

Here is what I have eaten today:

7:20am – 2 oatmeal raisin cookies. Hey, I figure it’s not any worse than commercial oatmeal flavored with brown sugar with raisins added. OK, it is worse, but it’s too late now, I already ate them.

7:45am – one Smart Ones breakfast sandwich w/turkey sausage. I L-O-V-E breakfast sandwiches! These are actually really good; so are the ones with Canadian bacon.

8:07am – finished first bottle of 16.9 oz of water w/sugar free drink mix added.  I say "first" because I plan to drink a total of three.  I am terrible about drinking enough water, something I have discussed ad nauseaum in previous posts.

9:30am – big piece of Starbuck’s coffee cake; brought to me as a gift from a co-worker, felt too guilty to say NO.

11am – Noon: Lunch at work. Brought smart stuff to eat; forgot it was chicken enchilada day. I completely forgot about what I had brought and had 2 enchiladas with Spanish rice and can of Diet Coke.

Well, so far everything is going according to plan. My EVIL TWIN’S PLAN! Strangely, I am not deterred or disappointed or angry. My good decisions are being undone by my bad ones, but I am not surprised or dismayed by this. And it’s not going to stop me. I am going to acknowledge that I am not making the best decisions today, and when the next decision comes up, I know what I have to do.

Kick my evil twin in the balls and run like hell.

I am headed down to my mom’s place tonight after work and I’ll be there all day tomorrow, so I won’t be able to log the rest of my day today or my day tomorrow, but on Thursday I will post what went on. I promise to be 100% honest.  The plan is to eat what I brought for lunch for tonight's dinner, make the best choices I can all day tomorrow, and bring a good lunch to work on Thursday.

May the force be with me.





Monday, October 8, 2012

The View From Rock Bottom Sucks

I have hit an all-time low, or a high, depending on which way you want to look at it. Either way, it’s bad.


I weighed myself last week: 340.2.

That weird crashing noise you thought you heard last week but couldn’t place? My life.

My depression level has rarely been at the level it has been for the last week. I can genuinely put it in my top three all-time depression moments.

I have been doing some deep thinking lately, and I have come to some conclusions. Bear with me while I share. Some of these things I have not shared with anyone before.

About 15 years ago, I was experiencing one of my other top three depression episodes. I decided that my life was just no longer worth living, and decided to take steps toward ending it. All my problems were insurmountable, unsolvable; I was less than nothing, unloved, unlovable, destined for failure on all counts and there was just no getting past it. I knew that my suicide would distress very few, although my mother would be devastated and my sister would be similarly unhappy, but I was determined to go through with it. But, before I hacked at my wrists or slammed my vehicle into a telephone pole, I wanted to give my apartment a thorough cleaning. My mother would be having a hard enough time with my death the least I could do for her was make sure the apartment was nice and clean when she came to clear out my things.

I have not been able to keep a clean and tidy home since. Coincidence? Doubtful.

And since I am still around to be writing this pathetic blog, I obviously gave up on the whole idea of killing myself, right?

Are you sure about that conclusion?

Why else would an intelligent person like myself allow my skeleton, heart, kidneys and liver to try to support 340 pounds?

Slow suicide. It’s a lot less obvious, less messy, takes longer – granted, but the end result is still the same. I’m still slicing off whole years, decades probably, from my life.

I don’t know why this is finally sinking in, that this is what I am really doing to myself. And I don’t know why it’s making me want to fight back for a change. I am 45 years old. I don’t want to be a sad sack anymore. I don’t want to be fat anymore. I want to live. REALLY LIVE. Not exist.

I am joining Weight Watchers again. I haven’t been an actual member for a long time, but whenever I was trying to diet I would use what I learned from them and use my old Points counter slide-ruler thingy. About two days after I made the decision to join, I went to the library to pick up a book I had on hold. When I went to the checkout counter, they have books on display, and guess what book was on display? “Weight Loss Boss: How to Finally Win at Losing--and Take Charge in an Out-of-Control Food World” by David Kirchhoff, the CEO of…wait for it…Weight Watchers.

I now take it as a sign.

I love his book. It is not a book for WW members, it not really a book about WW (although he does discuss how WW works); it is about one man’s struggle to lose weight. Can you imagine being the CEO of the world’s most successful weight loss corporation and being obese? Welcome to David’s world. He is funny, real, inspiring, down to earth, and very candid. The book is not condescending in any way, and he doesn’t sugar coat things. I really enjoyed reading it and it only took me about a day and half!

I am not going to do the online program this time; I need a social life and I don’t have one. I crave adult company and conversation, and I don’t get that at home anymore and I don’t really get it at work. (No, I didn’t get the job I mentioned in my last post; but I am working again. I hate it.) I am going to get the Monthly Pass so that I can attend as many meetings as I want, where ever and when ever I want to. I want to go to one in Longview where I work on Tuesdays, and to one in Chehalis (about 20 miles from the house) on Saturdays. I am going to need all the help I can get, and I figure I will click with one group or the other and hopefully get some of what I need.

All I need now is the money to do it. Hopefully I can do it this payday. Cross your fingers for me.

My other goal is to buy a bike. I was quite the avid bicyclist when I was a teenager and I loved it so much. The problem now is trying to find a bike that will hold my massive carcass without the wheels going flat. I found one that I want (it’s on my Diet and Exercise Pinterest board) that is made by Worksman Cycles in the USA; they are customizable and are made for riders up to 500 lbs! I want to ride my bike all over the frickin’ countryside out here, then I want to do the Seattle to Portland race that they have every year. (For more information on it, go here: https://shop.cascade.org/content/events/stp) I really, really want to do it. I am going to make greeting cards and jewelry to sell to reach my goal of buying my bike; hopefully I’ll have enough money before I’m 90.

This morning I weighed myself and I am down to 336.2 so I am going in the right direction and I am feeling a little better. I am going to print off a lot of motivational things from my Pinterest boards and hang them on my bedroom walls.

Go me.