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.

Okay, I’ve heard it one too many times. Heck, I’ve even said it in the past. But it’s not true and I won’t listen to it anymore! It’s not more expensive to eat healthy! “I try to eat healthy, but it costs so much more money to get healthy foods.” Riiight. What you really mean when you say this is, “Processed foods that are low fat and/or low cal cost more than their fattier counterparts.” That is true. I can spend $2.64 on a box of 6 packages of 100 calories snacks. And that’s a bit more than a box of fatty chips. But… if I want to eat healthy, I’ll skip the pre-packaged snacks and eat an apple. And an apple is cheap. And so is a banana. And an orange. Even at $1.64 a pound for what I had to pay for my Gala apples the other day, I got more apples – more volume than those little snack bags.

But see it wasn’t that long ago that I was griping about it all myself. That was before I started actually trying to eat more healthy, not just less fatty. When I really started analyzing my diet, I realized that those 100 calorie snack bags are a bunch of empty calories. They may be less calories than the bag of Doritos, but they’re still empty calories. I grudgingly started eating more fruit (I still have to work on fresh veggies, but I’m doing frozen at least) so that I could have more potassium, and more vitamin C and all that stuff and less sodium (WAY less sodium!). And now I find I’m spending aless money. A LOT less. And dang it, I LIKE the fruit. Now, sometimes I really want something chocolatey. And a Pria bar is slightly more expensive than a candy bar. And I think my Health Smart Fudge bars are a little pricey-er than the unhealthier versions, but those indulgences don’t tip the scales with how much less I’m spending not buying so many pre-packaged foods!

Now, I still need to work on lunches. I do a tv dinner every day. And I need to work on dinner because we do a lot of easy foods at home in the interest of time. I think my kids recognize the Hand on the Hamburger Helper box! But that has nothing to do with eating healthy (because it’s NOT) or not (and on HH days, I usually bake some tilapia for myself – my poor malnurished children). And the truth is, if I actually cooked a real dinner, I’d be spending less money. And if I stored some of that dinner and ate it the next day, I’d be saving money *and* having less sodium. So I’m back to the lie. It is not more expensive to eat what’s good for your body.

So there.

This subject may be just too much information but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about way to much not to mention. I’ve been getting at LEAST 8 glasses of water a day, and that’s straight water. That doesn’t count hot chocolate and it certainly doesn’t count soda which I’ve practically eliminated from my diet. If I DO have a soda, I have an EXTRA glass of water to make up for it. But when you drink a lot of water, naturally you pee a lot. And I’m SO tired of peeing. I’m glad my office is right across from the bathrooms (except when someone makes stinkys and I have to close my office door, but I digress). I think we’re supposed to drink so much water because that gives us that much more exercise every time we have to go to the bathroom!

Too much fiber is a bad thing. We’ll just leave it at that.

Okay, my snagged page has been taken down from that site. And by the creator. So she must have read my comment there. Or perhaps she came here and read my post. Still hoping she gets help.

I was looking at my web stats the other day and saw an external link that I hadn’t noticed before. That just means someone has a link from their site to mine. I visited this site and I was appalled on so many levels. First, and now the most trivial, this person has my entire “My Tools” page on her site. The entire wording is mine. The links to the files are to my site. There is no mention of my name and she never asked me for permission to do this. I never mind when people pass around my spreadsheets. Frankly it flatters me. But this is different. This is the entire page and I’m given no credit whatsoever.

But worse than that is what this site is about. The home page says,

This is a a “pro ana” site so if you do not have an eating disorder please leave now. This is a non-judgemental place and all are welcome but please do not leave rude messages.

At first I paid no mind. I was more concerned about the snag from my own site. But then I read around. Pro Ana… Ana is short for anorexia. ANOREXIA. This is a PRO anorexia site. I’m all for losing weight, but in a healthy way and only if it’s necessary. From the about page on this site, this is a 17 year old girl. And she calls it an eating disorder but her entire site promotes being thin that the complete disregard of your health. I’m just horrified.

I’ve looked around for a way to contact her. I could only write to the main site as this is a subdirectory kind of like having your own Yahoo page or something like that. I’ve tossed around whether or not I should post the link to her site here. Right now I don’t think I will. I don’t want to encourage anyone to eat like this. If it’s that important to you, you can probably Google from the text I gave you.

I posted this so that if you’re the praying type, you can pray for this girl. Pray that she gets the help she needs. Pray that her family can help her. If you’re not the praying type, try it out anyway. It sure can’t hurt!

And if you’re “that girl.” Email me. anna (at) onmyweigh (dot) com. I’ll do whatever I can to get you help. Seriously.

Jonathan doesn’t believe me. Last night I told him I was willing my weight to be lower this morning. I furrowed my brow and concentrated on my weight willing it to go down… down. Well it worked! I was down a pound! Whoo hoo! I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I totally have sodium under control. Or that I’m drinking all of my water plus more. It’s not because I’m keeping my calorie intake down (but not TOO down) and doing a good job balancing carbs, proteins and fats. And it’s SURE not because I’m making sure to have fresh produce every day. Or that I’m eating when I’m hungry and not when I’m not. That had nothing to do with it. It’s because I willed it to be. Really.

I was paying for my groceries at Walmart today. I was doing the self-check thing and a lady behind me asks, “Do those work?” She was referring to my Pria bars. I assured her that I thought they tasted pretty good and they’re good for you, too. But what she was asking was if the bars help you lose weight. We’ve heard it all before. Do diet pills work? Slim Fast? Hypnosis? How about that ear staple? Well, I’ve tried them. I tried the diet pills. I’ve tried Slim Fast. I’ve even tried the ear staple – a lot more recently than I care to admit and no, it didn’t work. Everyone wants something that works. When I got my ear staple back in May… I think it was May… I wanted so bad for it to work. I wanted some magic way for my head to know that my stomach was full. And I wanted my stomach to be really ticked off with me if it got over full. Well dang that staple didn’t do squat. Maybe it really does work for some people, maybe. But for me all it did was tell me that there’s no quick fix. That the right thing to do has been the right thing all along. I was talking to a co-worker about the staple. She didn’t have one. She was so hoping to hear it helped me lose a lot of weight. She was disappointed to hear it didn’t. And she said she’d tried hypnosis and that didn’t work for her. She said, “Anna, there’s got to be something that works.” Know what works? Diet and exercise. Let me say that again. DIET AND EXERCISE. Sometimes it takes a kick in the pants as a reminder. Or in my case, an ear staple. By the way, if you’ve already gotten an ear staple, I highly recommend when you give up on it, that you have someone with the proper tools take it out. Someone ≠ Jonathan. Proper tools ≠ needlenose plyers.