On My Weigh

Yes, I’m here. I’ve been ignoring most of my blogs lately. It’s just crazy at the end of the school year when you work at a school. I’m SO looking forward to the summer! I plan to do most of the following:

• join a gym
• take a dance class with my girls
• play LOTS of very active Wii games
• take walks and bike rides with my kids (in the mornings, before the temperature hits three digit degrees)
• take the time to eat healthier

I may not do the gym if I do the dance but everything else is a real plan! Did I mention I’m looking forward to the summer?

I did great today, but then it’s a day of fast for me (Ash Wednesday) so that made it easy. But I’m plugging along and plan to have a great day tomorrow. Restarting with small goals. Like right now I’m mostly just focused on eating between 1200 and 1500 calories. When I can get back to doing that consistantly for at least a couple of weeks, then I’ll work on exactly what it is I’m eating… and maybe exercise. I really do want to get back to me. For awhile there, I’m not sure I cared that much. I guess it wasn’t really a priority, which with all the other current stressors in my life, that’s no surprise. But I’m so unhappy with my physical self right now, and that definitely influences other things, so I reseting priorities. Again.

Dang… Thanksgiving is over. The many Christmases are over. My conference is over. I’m out of reasons to screw up my eating except the only truth which is that I can’t, or rather I don’t want, to control myself. So that’s not an acceptable excuse. And I’m starting over for the 1,814th time. No, really.

These tips work well because almost every tip is focused around completing a small goal. In my opinion, to stay motivated and lose a significant amount of weight, you should complete many goals in a short period of time.

10 Unconventional Diet Tips: How to lose 50 pounds in three months - lifehack.org

Follow the link above to find 10 tips for weight loss written by a guy at LifeHack.org who lost 50 pounds in 3 months. That’s a lot of weight really fast, by the way. More than four pounds a week? Wow. I heard somewhere that you shouldn’t lose more than 1% of your body weight per week. That’s where the often-heard 1 to 2 pounds a week comes in. Now, I’m excited for the guy, and lucky him that he’ll never have pregnancy to slam the weight back on again. But I digress.

The ten tips are great. He calls them unconventional because he never heard them before but he must have never looked for a real diet before.

1. Buy a digital scale. Well, okaaaaay. To me that’s a given. He suggests getting a scale that’s accurate to .2 pounds (that’s American pounds, obviously). I agree with this, just never thought to call it a tip. You kinda need a scale if you’re going to track your progress…
2. Weigh yourself everyday. I guess this is unconventional because most official weight loss places say weekly. I’ve always weighed daily. I think SparkPeople recommend dailly. Most “normal people” weight loss suggestions recommend daily. This makes more sense to me because you can get a feel for your trend.
3. Drink 8 glasses of water everyday. He suggests that not just for basic health reasons but because the water makes you feel more full. Again, not unconventional to me, but certainly a good tip.
4. Make your diet public. I hear this a lot and again, I think this is a biggie. Some people will try to sabotogue your diet. Some people will try to help. But regardless, just letting people know holds you accountable. When you’re staring at the candy machine and three people in the break room know you’re supposedly dieting… well, you tend to do the right thing more often than not. Or at least pause to think about it.
5. Don’t diet on the weekends. Okay THIS one is is unconventional, I think. The only other suggestion similar to this is from One Phat Man who ate what he wanted on Fridays only. The guy on LifeHack takes two days off. With all the problems I’ve had lately trying to get back to me again, I may just allow this. Better two days than seven…
6. Don’t sacrifice your life for your diet. This is basically saying to allow yourself to indulge on special events so you don’t feel deprived. Good advice, but that’s what SparkPeople and Weight Watchers are both about. Eat healthy but allow yourself those indulgences in moderation.
7. Make the small changes. This is another biggie for both SparkPeople and Weight Watchers. Making some steps to be healthier. Changing habits a little at a time. A great tip, but not “unconventional.”
8. Gain perspective by understanding the fractions. Umm.. what? Okay, I get it… Consider that this time that you’re dieting is only a tiny portion of your entire life and it will keep you motivated because of what great things you’re doing. Hadn’t heard this with this spin, but I disagree mostly because for me, I don’t believe in traditional dieting at all. His point of view says you’re going to stop dieting. I believe you need to make healthy changes and stick to those changes - forever. Heck, that’s been my whole problem lately. So… yeah, I don’t think this one was a good tip.
9. Rationalize your workouts. He does the fraction thing again. Points out that 1/2 an hour at the gym is only 2% of a 24 hour day. But I’ll buy that one.
10. Have a red flag weight. Yeah, NOW we’re talking! I don’t call it a red flag weight. I call it “critical mass.” But basically it’s the max weight that I ever want to reach. Of course right now I’d just like to BE critical mass again, but that’s not the point.

So there are his ten tips. Unconventional or otherwise. He also goes on to say that he basically followed the Weight Watchers plan and invites people to offer other tips in the comments. Darn, someone already mentioned SparkPeople in comments. Lots of great additional tips and of course he elaborates on his own tips more than I did. So I thought I’d share.

Nathan, my nearly three year old, went to the ER yesterday because of his asthma. They needed to give him some steroids (at 4 o’clock in the MORNING!) and I didn’t know how much he weighed. So they carted him off and back. Anyway, he weighed right at 30 pounds. Now, I put my 31 left goal as 25 pounds. But 30 would be more accurate. Maybe more. I looked at my kid and thought - wow… that’s a lot of weight. At first I was discouraged a bit. Thirty pounds. My kid is heavy. If I have to carry him around the mall much, I’m feeling it. Then I realized how important it is to lose my kid - well, not literally, but the weight of my kid. Though some days he makes me wonder if losing him - okay, he’s two. I digress. I get tired lugging him around. How much more energy will I have when I’m not lugging around my OWN 30 pounds that I can’t just put down when I’m tired? So while I’m still frustrated at myself for getting back to this point, I realize that I need to do this. I *need* to.

Okay, so yesterday started off kinda scary for me. I was way too focused on the Pria bar I didn’t have. But I did fine during the day. Then things took a little bit of a spill. Meghan begged for Taco Bell on the way home from school and they gave her two tacos instead of one, and I snitched a couple of nachos (sans cheese at least) and she didn’t eat half of her taco shell. But as soon as I got home I put in the calories on the tracker. By the way, Taco Bell has a great nutrition calculator where you can put in exactly what you ate - even sans shell or sans meat or extra cheese or whatever - and it will calculate out all of the basic facts. /digression.

So I entered it all and I was still doing good on the day. Not great, but good. And then things went wonky again. Just after having some toast our Internet service went down and I became afraid to eat. Terrified. I wasn’t sure how much left I had on the day in terms of calories. I was pretty sure I had a good 200 easy. But I had no way to find out. I was almost literally shaking at one point. It was like I was really two different people. One part of me wanted to blow off the day just because I couldn’t calculate it. The other part of me wanted to eat right, but that part of me was so frustrated about not knowing what “right” was. And another part of me (okay, so three people), was just frustrated at being frustrated and couldn’t figure out why I just can’t be NORMAL and not NEED to count calories and just eat what’s right and be done with it. So I kind of appeased all three parts and ate a box of Cracker Jacks. I ate because it tasted good and that’s what I wanted to eat. I was certain 120 calories would be fine. And I couldn’t enter it into the computer anyway, so I just tried to deal. Nathan, the brat, ate over half my box so we split another.
This morning, as soon as I was able, I entered yesterday into the computer and was thrilled to see I was within my range in nearly every category. I was under in calories. I didn’t hit fiber, iron or potassium, but I was under in sodium and spot on everywhere else. Whoo hoo! Smell me!

Today I remembered the Pria bar. And as it will be a rush evening tonight, I’m sure it will be McDonald’s for the kids, so I went ahead and entered my entire day into the computer so it will be easier to eat right and still go ahead and have some fries and McNuggets. Whoo hoo!

Do I think I’m really back on track? No, not really. Because 2/3rds of me fight for me to just eat and not care. But that third is trying really hard, and I have such a supportive husband. I don’t know how he puts up with me. So I’m going to just take it one day at a time for now and celebrate my little successes along the way.

I got out the door this morning without my Pria bar. Dang it. Now to figure out how I’m not going to let that be the start of the avalanche of the day. I’m really good about blowing the whole day beginning with one tiny issue. Because as soon as I realized I’d forgotten my Pria bar, I was already thinking I wanted chocolate and I’d just get a Snickers from the snack machine and well if I was going to have a Snickers I would just go ahead and have a real lunch instead of a TV dinner and well, why don’t I just take the day off? Right?

But yesterday was a good day. I almost blew the day just like I’m envisioning today happening. I did good all day and then got home and was making pancakes for dinner and I ate while I was cooking (mmm… pancake batter….) and ate the piping hot pancakes and I thought I’d for sure blown the day so I almost… ALMOST snarfed some more Halloween candy of the kids because whattheheck my day is shot. But I went ahead and entered my SparkPoints data and was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn’t blow the day at all. I was right on target. So I didn’t snarf candy. And it felt good to be right.

So why is it not even 9am and I’m already picturing my whole day with crappy foods? Today’s challenge will be to not let that lack of a chocolate flavored power bar be the catalyst for eating poorly. I ate my yogurt and my banana, which I didn’t forget. So at least I’m off to a good start…

It’s after Thanksgiving. COMPLETELY after Thanksgiving. So no “well, it’s still Thanksgiving weekend” excuses. I have nearly a month before I can give the Christmas excuses. Well, no that’s not entirely true. Jonathan’s office party is this weekend. Mine is next. Then we have Christmas with Jonathan’s family. Then Christmas with our own family. Then Christmas with my family. I have a LOT of Christmas excuses. So I’m going to make the best of the days with no excuses.

I still have a bad attitude about it all. Well, no my attitude’s not bad, it’s just that I’m not particularly motivated. I get frustrated when I see someone thin, see how I want to look again. Or when I can’t get into my clothes. But that’s still not enough for me not to snarf my 2 year old’s M&M’s.

I need to figure out what’s going to work this time. What will motivate me to stay on course. I’m already thinking part of why I haven’t been sticking to the good stuff is boredom. I thought at first I was just a creature of habit. But I think it’s laziness. When I’m doing things right, 95% of the time, I pack a yogurt, a banana, an apple, an orange, a Pria bar and a TV dinner to go to work. The fruit only varies if I forget one or am out of one so I take two of another. I think I’m just sick of the same ol’ thing, but I’ve been too lazy to figure out something else to try.  I know I like plums, though I’m quite picky about their ripeness so I normally just skip them. I love pineapples, but they’re expensive if you want them fresh and already cut. And mangoes are good but I have to cut those, too, because I don’t like how the meat gets in my teeth when I just bite into them. So it’s mostly apples, bananas and oranges because they’re easy and I’m lazy. But it’s the same old thing and I think that’s part of why I’m eating poorly. Because every bad food I’m eating is easy to eat and good. So I know this is something I need to work on.

But for today, it’s yogurt, apple, banana, orange, Pria bar and TV dinner. Whee.

It’s that time again. Time for me to get a crummy attitude. Time for me to ignore the web site and pretend that my weight isn’t a constant issue. Pretend it doesn’t bother me that I’m xyz pounds above my goal and that it’s okay that I eat whatever the heck I want to whenever the heck I want to and in whatever portions I want to. It’s time stop stepping on the scale so I can pretend I’m not going in reverse. Okay, well, that’s the direction I’ve been headed. Did I say I was back on the wagon? I lied. I picked up a train heading in the other direction. Nice, huh?

I wish I knew what was in me that takes me to this spot. What triggers me to throw away everything I’ve worked for to get to where I am? Why do I suddenly think that I hate fruit and that veggies are a waste and that copious amounts of chocolate will be worth it all? Why do I pretend that I’m going to be “good” in a day and then make an excuse to blow it out of the water? Like yesterday. It’s a Sunday. The start of the week. I’m going to be good. I had nothing to eat or drink until about 11:30 am and then I got a yogurt (good) and thought I’d have just a single serving of barbeque potato chips. Only Nathan took three or four of my carefully weighed portion of chips. So I thought I’d replace them with eight or ten more, figuring he’d eat more. He did. So I got more still. Until finally I had the bag of chips sitting in front of us and had no idea how much I’d eaten. And then I figured I’d blown the day so what the heck, right?

I really need to figure out how I get here. I can’t blame it on stress really. My work has been improving greatly and I look forward to going again. My husband and kids are well and make me happy. My house is a total disaster but my attitude toward it is along the same lines as my attitude with eating. I know that it’s a horrible mess. I know exactly what I should do to fix it. I sometimes make a haphazard effort to fix things and then when it doesn’t go perfect I go in reverse. So whatever has me screwing up my eating has me screwing up with housecleaning. I know that I hate looking at my house right now, inside and out. I know that I hate it because of what I’ve done and not done to get it to that state. I know that I almost resent my husband when he tries to fix the house or when he gently reminds me about the food - it’s like I think he’s showing off that he’s better than me. And I know - I do KNOW - that that isn’t his intention, but I get upset regardless.

So, I’m here again. And today, even though I am truly and completely despising logging in what I’m eating, I’m actually doing so on SparkPeople - where I haven’t been in over a week. And it didn’t start off so good (20 oz of gas station cappuccino coffee), I’m doing okay. And I’m staring at Thanksgiving in two days and I’m not sure I’ve ever gone to my in-laws EVER and ate very good, but I’ll try at least. Though I’m afraid to say that I’m going to try because lately I saw that and it’s a blatant lie.

The thing is, I hate that nothing fits me. I hate that I have oodles and oodles of clothes that I can’t wear. I hate how I look. And I know what I need to fix it. I know it. But I’m just not wanting it right now. I want to be in a size four again. Just like I want the perfectly clean and straightened house. And I know how I can have that house. But I can’t seem to get into the mental place to do what has to be done. And I’m frustrated. I mad at myself. And yet I could eat a batch of brownies right now without batting an eye.

I know I’m rambling. And I know I’ll get through this. I almost didn’t post anything at all. I hate posting when I have a bad attitude. How can anyone ever call ME inspirational?! But I’m afraid if I don’t post, particularly now, I’m going to be back on the blog in a year saying how bad I screwed up and how I’m starting over starting over starting over and I’ll be twenty pounds heavier than even now. Maybe if I write it. Maybe I’ll get back in the right place in my head. Maybe.

Comics and Editorial Cartoons: Clear Blue Water on Yahoo! News

This is certainly in line with a post I made semi-recently about what works.