3/19/2008

The upside to sickness:

273.5 . Its now 1pm on day two and feeling a bit better. It might be because I'm sitting down, hold on, let me stand up...

Still a little achy, haven't had a fever, have more strength today. Could it be over so quickly? I've been using zicam, is that the name? Those nasal swabs that claim to cut colds short. This wasn't a cold, but maybe the zinc helped? Who knows. I took the day off today as a final resting day, but it looks like this is going away as fast as it came. *crosses fingers*

This entry is so random. Anyhow, my goal weight for the week was 273 and its only Wednesday. I figure that when my appetite comes back I will go back up a bit. But, it was a morale boost! Ha, I probably shouldn't even think this way.

I also wanted to share this picture of my cat drinking water out of the bathroom sink. I know lots of cats do this, but somehow when he does it I think its genius and extra special. Thats me off to the side trying not to disturb him.

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sun medicine

I had great plans for this week. I was going to start using my new bento box that my mom got me for my birthday. I was going to go to the gym. I was going to tidy the house for the arrival of my friends this weekend. I'm not sure which of these things would have happened, and which wouldn't have. But, I have the flu and it sucks. And I'm whining about it.

I think I'm in a bit of denial about it, as I went into work yesterday morning. It wasn't easy as every stop I had to get off the train for my fear of "getting sick" in public. What is the protocol for this? After train hopping and stopping three times I finally called my co-workers from a pay phone (no reception in the station) to ask "what do you do if you have to puke in the train station? Can I do it on the tracks?" Her best advice was to go upstairs and have them call the ambulance. That seemed a bit drastic and expensive for matters of the flu. I ended up asking a lady who did not speak very good English for her plastic shopping bag. I official entered NYC crazy person status at the 36th st. R train line. It was even so dramatic that I dropped the phone mid-conversation because I felt my body turning violent if I didn't do it right then.

This all started on Friday night when I met my Finish friend Annika for drinks. I hadn't seen her in about two years since our internship in Dumbo. She sent me a message before hand that read "I feel like death, but I'm coming anyway!" Now I know what she meant.

Its almost 4AM and I'm heading into day two of this. The nausea has passed and it seems for now that the fevers have stopped too. All thats left is a very achy body, a semi-sore throat and eyeball pain (not sure where this one comes from.) I cheered myself up by reading passages of my old childhood diary. It.is. hilarious. I wrote in this thing from 1992-1998. I wrote about 4-5 pages each year mostly about new crushes, and fights with my sister or friends.

Anyway, please keep me in your thoughts as my favorite friends are coming to visit Friday and I need lots of energy.

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3/15/2008

happy smurf day

Well folks, I finally did it. I turned 25 yesterday, the age my mother was when she had me. I had a really good birthday yesterday, or perhaps too good of a birthday as I didn't make it home until 6am. Sadly, no cake, perhaps next weekend when I have another birthday party. This picture cracked me up, it's so obvious she wants cake. I've heard that at my age I should want alcohol over cake, well, I'll take both.

Surprisingly, I weighed in at 276.5 this morning. I took a photo of this monumental occasion and will upload it sometime tomorrow. Still working out some kinks with the "new diet". Oh I need to go to the gym. And I'll probably start using my food log again. Oh well, things will keep morphing I'm sure when I admit that the occasional bagel or potato happening will pop up here and there and that I can still lose weight if I eat them. Sigh. 240 by June 22nd. 240. 240. 240.

Happy Birthday to me. I'm feeling a little bit wiser today and a lot more confident.

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3/09/2008

8oz. of pure evil

It's day seven of the new diet. I'm calling it the Token Fat Girl diet, in fact, I'm declaring it! Okay, so I can't take credit for a lot of the ideas behind it, but I feel like I gave it a Lorrie twist. We'll see, don't want to get ahead of myself, its only been a week.

Let me just state here and now that I'm a total hypocrite. In fact, a major one. I've been on a high horse about artificial sweeteners for quite some time. And while I think they are horrible, I've had like six mini diet cokes since Friday. I don't want this to be some sort of habit, but the caffeine has been a nice kick lately.

What else? Oh, I had my weekly dessert last night at the local diner. I had a hard time deciding between the German chocolate cake or a chocolate sundae. I went for the sundae with walnuts (you know, for protein.) It even had a cherry on top and it was so very good. I defiantly savored it and I didn't feel the need to gorge myself on chocolate afterwards. I thought for sure this would cause some sort of water-weight gain or some weird reaction with my body and I would be right back up to 283. I was wrong, still 277.

Today I've had almost no hunger or appetite for food. I didn't think it was possible. I woke up, had a mini-diet coke (argh) and then a few strawberries w/ a little whipped cream on top. Not really a balance meal. I worked really hard physically in the apartment today. The purging is still going on, and I'm confident when I say that this process is nearing an end. I actually created an area in the bedroom for creating artwork.

Anyhow, after the strawberries around noon I didn't think about food until about 7pm when Josh offered to take me out to get Indian food for the beginning of my birthday week. I had it all planned out, no naan and no rice. I did have one pakora though and rationalized that it is mostly made of vegetables (insert snicker.) For dinner I had a salad and tandori chicken. It was good and satisfying and I didn't even miss the rice. I'm actually thinking about making my usual chicken tikka masala this week with brown rice. And possibly a whole wheat baked macaroni and cheese.

One more thing, last night at Rite Aid we spotted something called "crave control" spray. I talked Josh into getting it for me, you know, for scientific blog experimentation. I was actually having a small craving after dinner tonight so I sprayed some in my mouth and bam, no cravings! It could all be in my head, but the real test will be during that special time of the month.

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3/08/2008

secrets out

I'm here, as promised. I suppose this is where I tell you what in the world I've been doing all week that is so secretive? I can't say, just yet.

Just kidding. It's really nothing new, after all this is a weight loss blog. So, here it is, I tried a new diet. Shock. Gasp. I kept it a secret because I'm always starting a new diet, I'm always starting over and I'm always talking and analyzing my behavior or lack of action or whatever. I just needed to do it first, without talking about how it's going and the ups and downs of the first week of doing things differently. Let me tell you, the first day was hard. The third day was hard. And then on the fourth day it was suddenly easy. I stopped mourning over the lack of junk food day to day. And it was still easy on the fifth day.

What happened? I stopped thinking, mourning, obsessing over food. At first, I was sad and crazy to say the least. Josh witnessed it, and I'm so glad I didn't blog about it. Because now I know how fleeting those feelings were. They were as though the denial monster was rearing its ugly head at me. You see, this past weekend was great food-wise. And when I said great I mean I had a big breakfast at the diner, I had Vietnamese, I had my first macaron. I forget what else I had, I'm sure Chinese food was in there. Sunday night, I felt out of control, I was seeking direction and I needed to do something immediately and differently.

How did this all start? Well, Sunday on our way to Manhattan we stopped into a magazine shop and I saw one of those cheap women's rag magazines. You know the ones that are $1.99 and promise 50 lbs. weight loss in two months and then they have all of those over the top desserts in the back? Yeah. I stopped buying those a long time ago and not sure what pushed me to buy it. Anyhow, on the train I started flipping through it and read the diet of choice in the magazine was Suzanne Somers diet, Somersize. I laughed, and then I read and I started thinking. I liked what she talked about, but I didn't like the complication of eating foods only three hours after another and having fruit on an empty stomach. I wondered if all of that was really necessary.

And I kept thinking. I started thinking about my time(s) on Atkins and then thought about the south beach diet and Weight Watchers Core and then about her diet. I noted the common thread between all of them: no flour, sugar, or starch. And then I thought about how people go on about how unhealthy it is to not eat carbs, but I never felt that people were suggesting to not eat carbs at all. They were suggesting that white bread and twinkies should be left out of daily or weekly rotations.

What I knew then and what I know even more now is that, sugar in any form makes me crave more sugar. And I went through a mourning period without it. I really did. It was like "why can't I eat it?!!? Poor me." It was pathetic, I think I rolled around on the bed whining about how unjust life is. I got over it though, I realized that my only "thing" is my weight, and my only battle is food. What in the hell am I whining about?

So I created a version of my own that uses the commonalities of all of these diets with some twists of my own that I can surely tweak as I go along if I find they aren't working. It's pretty common sense if you think about it. When asked, what is healthy? Without any diet in mind I think :good fats (olive oil, nuts, fish), lean meat, whole grains, fruit. There really isn't a place for junk food. Sometimes I get really annoyed with the 100 calorie packs I see. As if, 100 calories of over processed empty calories will save us all from being fat. What? For real.

What did I eat?

I thought a great deal about this, I knew I did not want to count calories or points. I wanted to think less about food and focus more on hunger. Duh.

Why is the obvious stuff so hard to get? I wanted to eat food that I like and provide something nutritionally. Mostly, I wanted my cravings to go away.

This is what I came up with:

Lean Meat and vegetables: I allowed myself to eat as much of these as I wanted. I never felt the need to just sit around eating chicken by the pound so yeah.
Fruit: Eat 3-4 servings a day: I avoided bananas, but did have apples, grapes, berries and I believe I had an orange in there.
Fatty Meats: 1-2 servings a day: Things like bacon, pepperoni and fried chicken wings (no breading)
Nuts: 1/4 of a cup a day
Gains/Beans: 2-3 servings a day: Whole wheat bread, whole wheat wraps, 1/2 cup brown rice, 1/2 cup beans, unsweetened oatmeal, 1/2 cup whole wheat pasta.
Fat (real butter and olive oil): try to keep minimal, but 1-2 tbls. a day if so choose
Cheese: about 2 servings a day
Other dairy: Plain yogurt, cream cheese, cottage cheese, milk: 2-3 servings a day
Occasional treats: south beach diet bars, kashi bars, sugar free pudding/popsicles etc.
Once a week: One serving of dessert (sugar!!) if I so choose
Every two weeks: One day to allow for planned events eating, like birthdays etc. To eat in moderation what I want.

Phew. Typing that all made it seem more complicated that it actually is. These were merely guidelines that I adhered to, but bluntly if it was white, sugary or my common sense told me not to eat it, I didn't.

Great things happened though, I was out on a walk with my co-worker and stopped in a local grocery store for some chicken jerky, string cheese, nuts, berries etc. And he wanted pizza on our way back. I didn't get a slice, but if I was counting calories or points I probably would have fit it in. Which in one way, I could argue would make those diets more livable. But, I can never have pizza without wanting more pizza and then wanting pizza the next day and then the next day. Another day a co-worker bought me a pastry-looking cookie that truthfully looked so very good and delicate and yummy. I looked at it and without thinking I made some excuse about not liking that type of cookie (lie.) He was a little hurt because I think we was excited about giving it to me, but I just thanked him a thousand times anyway. I guess what got me, was that it didn't take a mountain of will power to just say no. But, had I not cut these items out of my diet, you can bet your ass I would have eaten them. And it wouldn't have stopped there.

Monday morning I got on the scale and it read 283. Sigh. Back here again? I thought. Monday was the only day that I actually wrote down what I ate. Here are my actual words:

food monday march 3rd - morning weight 283.0 3
eggs w/ provolone

3 slices of bacon about
10 pecan halves

5-6 strawberries
chicken jerky

2.5 servings of soy crisps

10 hot wings w/ sauce
notes: felt overwhelmed and scared that new diet plan wouldn't work, actually mourned over foods not eating. Did not feel bloated. Did not count foods, ate until full.

food tuesday march 4th- morning weight 281.0



As you can see, I had intentions to record Tuesday, but that didn't happen. Nor did it happen for the rest of the week. As far as exercise, I did more walking on my lunch break. Me and Josh were complaining about how hard it is to go to the gym in the winter and our lack of motivation to go in the morning or evening. We both want to go mid-day, which will be possible when I'm working at home, but now I think we will just have to go to the gym at different times. Hmm. Still working on that.

The diet went pretty well, but I'd be lying if I said I stuck to everything rigorously. I defiantly have room for improvement. This wasn't a grocery- eat- at -home week. So almost everything I was bought in small batches at the store or I ate out. I had fried chicken wings one night and then tried to again the next night but the veins grossed me out. It probably didn't help that I was trying to eat them while watching Dexter. On some days I clearly ate way too many nuts, pepperoni or cheese. Most mornings I ate eggs with cheese and bacon. One morningI had an omelette with ham and vegetables, and another morning I had egg whites with toast. I had whole wheat toast with butter a couple of times. I made these great pizzas last night: large whole wheat tortilla with pepperoni, cheese and basil. They were so good, we each had two. I clearly did not need to eat two, and sickness resulted. Lesson learned. One day I had three south beach diet bars, clearly out of control with those. The maple flavor is so good. I need to eat more vegetables, so I went to store yesterday and stocked up.

I had to work on mentally not stressing out, which I'm still working on. Thoughts like "will this actually work?" or "am I eating too much?" crept in my head, but I did my best to calm worried thoughts. This diet does not aim at being in ketosis, at all. And though I felt like I was eating a lot, I don't think my calories were that high. I didn't have any whole wheat pasta or beans this week, there are still a lot of foods that I'm exploring with. Which is why I'd like to keep a food journal at least in the beginning to see what foods work and what don't. I want to keep things as simple as possible. I haven't had my weekly dessert yet, but it really did motivate me on a small level at the beginning to know that I am eating healthfully and can still have dessert, literally on occasion. Occasion as in, once a week, not once a day. I have a birthday coming up on Friday, so that will be used as a free day I'm sure. So yeah, I feel good. I feel like I am going in the right direction. And my goal of 240 by June 22nd looks so possible from here.

Here is the scale this morning:

Cropped out ugly feet, of course.
I swear at one point it was .5 pounds lower. Technicalities! I realize that this is only one lb. lower than last week, and I know that a lot of this is water weight. But, its a new low as of recently and it feels good that I was able to eat foods that I love and never go hungry and the scale is down and not up. I really thought about it, and I can make a lot of the foods I love with this way of eating.

I also want to add that I made a list of things I want to work on with myself and taking better care of my skin is one of them. So I start a 30-day skin care treatment, that I've been using diligently. It feels good to take care of myself, one day at a time.




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3/04/2008

secrets

I'm doing something new/working towards something new this week. I want to talk about it, but I feel like I can't really blog about it until the end of the week. I'll be back on Saturday :)

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3/02/2008

following my own path

I made it through a whole week on plan! Towards the end of the week I was just logging my points on WW.com, but will update my food log sometime today.

My weigh in today is 278.5. Which is basically where I seem to be landing lately after a week of food watching and added exercise, and then slip away. This time, I am determined to get down past 278 and keep going for another round of week two. (and three and four and so on)

The good this week:
Made a an effort to eat less, and still have treats (still, possibly too many treats)
Walked up the five flights of stairs to my apartment several times (although forced due to the elevator breaking)
Took walks during my free time at work

The bad:
Ate most of my points in cookie dough yesterday (that I didn't even really want) and had to force myself to throw the tube away before it went any further.
Ate out too much this past week due to lack of groceries and lack of washed dishes
Didn't go to the gym, or participate in any formal exercise

I'm still working on cleaning up and clearing out the apartment today. And I feel the energy stirring and shifting. It feels like things feel lighter and generally more happy when I clean. I hope to get everything done today and make a conscious effort to keep everything like this on the day to day. I'm having a lot of visitors in the month of March and I feel I should keep things presentable. Also, this is the month of my birthday, so on the 14th I will be 25.

Which is making me feel like I need to get a lot done before I turn 25. I know its silly to create a big deal out of another day, but this one feels different. Turning 25 for me feels like an extra push to do all of the things I've been planning for. Sort of like I've been drawing up a map, ready to use at any time. A map, which will prove to be full of detours I'm sure, but sort of a small realization of the direction I want to head in.

I guess to make that more clear : I will be following my creative dreams. I have been doing a lot of work lately as far as learning new programs, learning new techniques, researching and studying what other people are doing, working on design ideas, preparing an online portfolio, and just in general trying to find answers for all of my questions. I've always been a creative person, it has just been a manner of figuring out how and where to channel that creative energy. A huge thing with creativity is being confident with yourself and your work. And I can say that for a long time I have not felt good enough. That feeling seems to stretch across the whole of me through and through and is a common thread in my life. The feeling like I can do something better than average is a feeling that I rarely experience. I am constantly second guessing myself. And now, I am telling myself to simply stop. There are people who do so-so work and are successful independently because they believe in what they do and they feel good about it. Not that I am to do so-so work, but I see the value in being genuinely confident. There is value in self-love.

I refuse to continue letting myself keep me down. There is subtle madness in my methods that if observed by anyone for too long they would surely see that deep down I am sabotaging myself out of fear. I keep things chaotic in my living space to prevent myself from actually being engaged in my surroundings. I have notebook after notebook filled with thoughts, ideas and plans. But, my life reflects little action. I sub cum to feelings of inadequacies so I don't have to feel how uncomfortable it is to actually do something and work towards something.

I know that being aware of this is slowly helping me chip away at it, I just need to cut off fear and rejection like an infected arm.

There has been a lot of wedding planning and finalization in the decision as to where to actually have it. It looks as though now we will be holding the wedding in Floyd VA, Josh's home town and my new home in September. Which seems to have been the obvious choice all along. His mom is the owner of a very innovative hotel. Innovative in its care and consideration of the earth and natural resources. And she has graciously offered to let us rent out her hotel for the weekend.

So, I say all of this to say that all of this decision making is making the whole thing real in my mind. Which is a very happy thing indeed and also the extra push I need to continue working on my health and appearance.

I have to laugh at myself because as I quickly approach 25 I find myself saying "I have a lot to do! I'm almost 25!"

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