5 pounds down!

So last week I found out I lost a little over five pounds. I was thrilled but a little worried. After all this is the week of Christmas and that means tons of food. I've been playing with my points this week decreasing the amount I eat and then increasing the next day in the hopes of keeping my metabolism working. Today was my biggest challenge. We had a holiday party at work and the smorgasbord of food was overwhelming.

Even so, I planned to eat as healthy as possible. I piled on the raw veggies and fruit and planned on eating the turkey another  person brought in. Unfortunately, another co-worker brought in burgers from the In-N-Out Burger across from our building. I didn't feel I could turn it away since it was one of the few items that couldn't be packed up and reheated. Also, it was presented to me as a gift and not a food option.

I ate it and it was pretty good. But for 13 points it was hardly worth it. The rest of the day I ate smarter and piled on the power veggies and fruits. I realize that life is always going to throw me challenges and that I'm going to have to deal with it. Today I think I did pretty well and I hope I continue to do so in the future.

Back on Track

This week of WW was a bit of a game changer. The top people at WW decided to tweak the point system a bit, again. Let's see it used to be the lowest you could go was 18 points, then it was 29 and now it's 26. The good thing is that I and anyone else doesn't have to stick to 26 points. Instead you can hover between 26 and 29 and use the remaining three points and be on track.  I wasn't sure how my body would take it. But on Monday I thought well, why not?

This whole week I focused on eating mindfully and eating 26 points. It turned out that three measly points were simply that, measly. If I got hungry I added more fruit or water. I asked myself "Am I hungry or am I tired, bored, sad, or stressed?" Those three points didn't matter. When I wanted a piece of chocolate I allowed it and I felt fine.

I went through the whole week this way and upped my activity. On my weigh in I found I had lost the weight I gained the previous week. It was so simple and I never felt deprived. Losing weight is still slow going but I think I can live with it now. And knowing that I think I will stick with it.

One step forward

Although, I've been on the Weight Watchers points plus program for four weeks now it is still technically week three for me. I was supposed to head to my third weigh-in after the Thanksgiving holiday and move onto week four. But my husband and I decided to visit his family in Midland the Friday after Thanksgiving. I tried to avoid all temptation. During the holiday at my grandparents' house I ate light and only had a slice of low cal pumpkin pie. Satisfied, I thought I can handle this.

But once we hit the road to Midland I grew uneasy. I did well, I thought but something about making that  five hour road trip always causes me to have problems in the digestive arena. We gave a heads up to my mother-in-law that I was back to counting points. She bought pizza for dinner the night we arrived. I tried to make light of it and had a slice of pizza. I loaded my plate with fruit and other vegetables. The rest of our time in Midland consisted of good home cooked food I love but was now fearful of.

When we got back I was determined to exercise or exorcise the holiday out of me. I started jogging. I drank more water and less coffee. And I watched my points. Nonetheless I was still disappointed to find I had gained 0.8 pounds at my next weigh in. I sighed and shook my head, got angry, and despaired.

I realize it's a small amount 0.8 lbs. But for me every week that I don't lose is a huge failure for me. I try to be realistic. I know losing weight doesn't happen all at once. Still it's hard to see your numbers go up when in your head you can't wait for them to go down to that magical number so you can finally be that perfect size 8 or 6 or anything that's not a double digit.

I blamed my husband for the weight gain. The stress of the trip and the food made me constipated and irritable and now I had gained instead of lost weight. This is the part my husband fears the most: my disappointment. When I am discouraged or disappointed I want to quit and I fight with everyone to make it OK to do so.

But this time I let it go. After feeling sorry for myself for a while I let the anger and frustration go. There is bound to be more obstacles ahead, a piece of cake, or a meal that my husband brought home that I won't have accounted for. These and many more will all happen at some point or the other. And when they do I will try to make the best decision I can and try to be happy with whatever the outcome.

Week 2

So hello again,

It is my second week on Weight Watchers and I am mildly surprised. I lost another pound.  But I can't say I wasn't hoping for a little more. After all, I lost roughly three and a half pounds the first week. If I have to be honest I got a little ahead of myself and was hoping to lose that same amount this week.

But, before I got on the scale I decided that I needed to be happy with the result as long as I hadn't gained. The road to weight loss and my ultimate goal is going to be hard. And possibly long. If it's going to be a lifetime goal and change the results and the work can't be a quick fix. So when I found out I lost a pound I smiled and rewarded myself by sharing the news.

In the meeting I learned a few things that will help in the coming holiday and I plan to put them to use. I will eat off a smaller plate and choose wisely. I will move more instead of going into a turkey coma. I will work to lose weight and not let myself go overboard with holiday cheer.

I will meet my goal this time around!

Hello Weight Watchers My Old Friend

I decided to rejoin Weight Watchers and adjust my attitude. I had been counting calories at home on my own but cheated more often than not. With the program I don't have to feel guilty about eating ice cream.That doesn't mean that I can eat junk food all day in my points range. Well, I guess I could but I would just be shooting myself in the foot.

Anyway, during my first week I lost 3.6 lbs. I am quite surprised considering how my last try went. But I am happy. I'm going to continue working out and counting my points. I've decided to change the way I think about losing weight too. Instead of only focusing on the number on the scale I am going to focus on how my body feels.

It's only a beginning but I can say I pushed myself more this week than I have in quite a while. My body is sore and tired but I feel so good. I ate less but I didn't deprive myself. When I wanted a piece of candy I had a piece and tracked the points. I limited myself to a piece and didn't waste anytime feeling guilty. As a result of knowing I could have what I wanted I found I wanted less.  And that felt good.

I still have 31.4 lbs  to go and I am not going to quit working the program until I am at my goal. So maybe Weight Watchers is clicking for me after all.

If You Are What You Eat...

I guess I am a chocolate filled pastry and coffee. I know, I know junk food is bad for the waistline. But I really do try. I try until I get bored, and then I eat, and then I get discouraged. The cycle is recycled. These past few weeks haven't been stressful. Not because I am busy. Far from it. There just has been a lot of changes in my life.

I've closed the door on graduate school as my thesis did not seem to have an end. And I started a new job. It's not that demanding but it has its pressures. Food is how I deal. I need a better way to deal. I was thinking about that today as I walked my dog. My husband is notorious for running off the stress. I think the endorphin high is a perk. I enjoy walking the dog. But I am not sure that trying to get my dog to stop chasing squirrels as we walk is going to make me enjoy it enough to get an endorphin high.

I try lunges, crunches, and rows but that just feels like work. To get through it I sometimes swear at my husband. He thinks the idea of my prim and proper self cursing through crunches is the best way to get a little comic relief. I asked my husband why he works so hard at exercising. Aside from the physical results, it gives him time to just be himself without pressure, and it makes him feel good. So it seems I am on a search to find an exercise routine that I can love. A routine that helps the endorphins rise and gets me to want to keep doing it. I have always wanted to try rock climbing, just a thought.

When you're hungry

When you've gotten into the habit of indulging it's hard to cut back. Just eating responsibly can be torture. Or at least it feels that way for me. The last few days I've returned to counting calories. It's helped a bit. I've actually lost a couple of pounds in spite of my forays into candy land. The hard part is not getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday I ate  oatmeal for breakfast with almonds and cranberries. I logged that at 300 calories. Lunch was simple at another 300 calories. I snacked on fruit and managed to be full. Then I headed home and the wait in traffic fueled my hunger. I decided to make tacos and added lots of veggies for extra crunch. In all the time it took to prepare it I grew hungrier.

As I sat down to dinner I forgot all about pacing myself and ate, and ate, and ate. I overdid it and I blew my calorie limit. I could kick myself and feel guilty but I decided to pace myself today. It seems that I had to as I ate so much that I was still full this morning.  Being ill from food gave me time to think and relax when I had dinner tonight. Maybe I went about it the wrong way but it seems I taught myself a little something. It's important to pace yourself; even when you're hungry.

Diet? What diet?

Sorry I have been gone the last two weeks. I wish I could say it was a need to reflect on life that kept me but really it was a job. I started a new job roughly two weeks ago. So far so good. But it's kind of undone my schedule and my diet.

I realize most people would kill for a job right now but I hate anything that disrupts my routine. For example, up until two weeks ago I walked my dog every morning for two miles. We often went to a trail because the trail changes just a bit day to day and it offers a challenge. I also stuck to counting calories and often ate similar meals day to day. I also moved a lot more. Even after exercise I found myself heading outside just to enjoy the outdoors.

Then I accepted a position with a sales group in Dallas. It's not a bad job. Just different from everything I had been doing for months. In just the past two weeks my routine has been falling apart. I can't walk the dog in the morning. I have to be at the office at 8 and that means I have to leave early to sit in traffic and then sit at a desk. I try to walk him when I get home but after being in traffic on my way home sometimes I end up asleep.

Sleep. That's another thing I miss. I will admit it, I am a bit lazy. I love to sleep and without a good 10 hours, yes, 10, I drag. This leads me to my diet. When I'm tired, and zapped of the energy I get during my morning walk I turn to food. Mainly sugar. I have a candy jar at my desk. At first I wasn't that interested in the candy. I even put the candy in a dark dish so I couldn't see it. After a while when my head would droop at  my desk I would shovel some candy in my mouth. That worked for a little while. Until lunch anyway.

 The building I work in conveniently has a deli downstairs stocked with all types of treats. I started heading down to the deli around lunch to grab a soft drink. Then after a few days I added chips. After the end of my first week I had eaten so much junk food that my stomach ached everyday and yet I continued to eat.

After a tough weekend I decided to be honest. I am working on changing my diet as much to get into smaller clothes as to have a healthier body. I'm not going to get very far on a diet made of junk. Today I did better. I drank water, ate fruit and veggies and  have decided to turn in early tonight. I did eat a bit more but it is my first day  back after all. It's all about the baby steps. Take enough baby steps and that will add up to a big step. At least I hope.

1300

After much thought I've decided to really watch my calories. OK, so it was my husband's idea. He even made me a spreadsheet. Even so, I found my numbers getting pretty high. Then I had a blood test done a couple of weeks ago. My triglycerides are high. This is worrisome as issues with high cholesterol and heart problems are in my family's medical history.

At first, I got proactive and said I needed to change my diet. Or at least I pretended to when people were around. Whenever the idea of  a cookie or fries popped into my head. I ate it. After a week or two of saying I couldn't eat better I gave in. I took a look at how much I ate and tried to figure out what I really needed to eat. I realized I could easily shave off 300 calories and be OK.

For me the 1300 is the lowest number of calories I can eat. 1400 is the max for what I am trying to achieve.Today was my day to eat 1300 calories. I did fairly well. I checked into Livestrong.com and got an idea of how I should proportion my meals by calories.

Basically it's 300 for breakfast and 300 for lunch with 500 for dinner. Snacks can be 100 calories. Breakfast was easy as I usually eat bran flakes and soy milk with a cup of coffee. I forgot to add some fruit in there so I may have to make my cereal portion smaller next time. Roughly 300 calories.

Lunch was difficult because I wasn't sure what to do. My go to lunch is turkey and cheese on whole wheat. But, a slice of bread, even whole wheat is 150 calories. Hm, tricky. I finally settled on a tortilla with a quarter cup of reduced fat cheese and an apple. All for 290 calories. I then ate a banana, 110 calories as a snack before dinner.

Dinner required a little more help because it was homemade chicken noodle soup with whole grain noodles, squash, zucchini, carrots, onion and celery. After putting the recipe through Calorie-Count.com I figured that a serving of my soup was 316 calories. I had two servings. This made my total for the day 1340 calories. I am impressed and surprisingly not hungry. Hopefully I can keep this up. I plan to focus on my cholesterol and heart this time around. We'll see if that works because so far trying to trick the scale isn't working.

The Scale: Friend or Foe?

How many women step on their scale only to be disappointed by the number? Hundreds, thousands, every woman? First we feel sad. Then we play games with it. "I'm wearing really heavy (shoes, belt, jewelry) if I take them off than I'll get the number I want. Nope, that didn't work. Crap!" Then we either fight it or give up.

On a daily basis I am annoyed by my scale. I am convinced it doesn't work as the number never budges below 150 as far as I am concerned. So I run through my own games. "Maybe it's not centered. Maybe if I stand on one foot." When none of that works I kick the thing and stomp off losing the battle again.

So far the only thing I have learned in my battle of weight loss is that I need to learn to say when. Every time I think I've learned it I get PMS'd out and crave a cookie, or two , or three. But still, I continue to work at it and it frustrates me that my work never shows on the scale. I can now walk two miles in 30 minutes. Before I would get winded and could walk 2 miles in 45 minutes.

I have days where I am so diligent about my calories that I actually feel hungry. The hunger is not something I can deal with for very long and before I know it I have ruined my diet. But still, there are more days that I have more resolve and that does not show up on the scale either. I know the scale is not my friend. But without it how do you measure your success?

Saying when

Sorry to be away so long readers, but  it's been a busy week. I've been doing very well on the exercise front and have been managing to keep my calories low. It's been hard and rewarding work. Trust a family get together to cause some trouble. I went to a family BBQ with the best of intentions but I didn't plan well enough. I decided to eat light before I hit the BBQ and stuck to bran cereal and fruit before I left. I was under the impression the festivities would start at three which meant it was a late lunch or early dinner. I tried to avoid being hungry by nibbling on cantaloupe before we left.

My husband and I get to our destination to find that there is no food at this get together. Well, at least nothing aside from the potato salad I made and the basic sandwich fixings. I was confused to say the least. It turned out my family caterer and planner; my grandmother had forgotten to tell everyone just how behind she was on the food. It's a family joke how late she runs behind. But this time I was paying it for it with my stomach.

Three hours later and I was starving. Or at least tired of waiting for the BBQ so I took up an offer of fried chicken. An hour later the rest of the food and guests arrived. At this point I was no longer hungry but still attracted to the prospect of BBQ. So I had a plate with the intentions of stopping after that. But waiting for food for a long period of time triggered something in me and I kept going until I had overdone it.

The next day had proved no better as the previous day had set a pattern in motion. I've gorged on chicken Alfredo this evening. Later my husband broached the subject of dessert and I strongly considered it but said no. I am incredibly jealous as my husband indulges in a candy bar. I had to leave the room or else I would've grabbed the candy bar. It looks like it's back to the beginning for me. Just when I thought I had learned when to say when.

The Clicker

So I thought I'd invest in some quality time with Geneen Roth's "Women, Food and God". I was reading a few pages and something clicked. Finally, something clicked. Roth wrote, "it's not about the weight, but it is." For anyone who hasn't read the book or doesn't have an issue with emotional or compulsive eating you might think this is a strange phrase. But hang on a moment and I'll explain. What Roth was trying to explain that so many people think there life's issues revolve around their weight. Some of the problems  probably do. But certainly not all of them. The reason I can't seem to get ahead professionally or seem to win over my board for my senior thesis has nothing to do with my weight. But, when I struggle with life I do turn to food and that does cause a problem with my weight.

So my frustration with food and dieting and life is not about my weight. At least not all of it. Yes, when I was slimmer I was healthier and I seemed happier. But, something went out of place in order for me to abuse food. I thought about for a few days and lost some sleep over it and I realized what was wrong. It's my frustrations, things unsaid, decisions agonized over and yes, some worry about my weight that cause me to overeat.

I thought back and I remembered when I was in college. I started out the chubby girl and added some weight with each year. But, in my third year of college I lost a lot of weight. At the time I attributed this to an extreme diet and strict exercise regimen. But there was a third ingredient I'd forgotten about. I was settled. I was finishing up school and had a feeling that everything I worked for was paying off. I was finally comfortable in my own skin.

And then I graduated and I had to deal with the struggle of not having a job. I became depressed, slept more, and avoided people. Then I found a job which required long hours and left me feeling spent and wondering "is this it?" I thought I could fill my emptiness with a person and so I began to date. I dated the wrong person. I dated to not be alone with myself. That didn't work so I switched tactics. I thought then maybe what I need is to get back to who I was before. And so I went back to school. I tried to compete with people who had their life together. I tried to work and study when I was already a mess. And then something happened: I couldn't fake it anymore and my life began to unravel.

Two years had passed before I could overcome the mess I had made. After it all I only had the energy to save my heart. By the time I picked my self back up my weight had increased but none of the other issues remained. At the time the weight no longer mattered, just the fact that I had survived. I wasn't counting on love. I met a great guy who didn't know a thing about before, didn't care and loved me now. I met him at the gym weekly just to spend time with him. In the process I lost a little weight and developed a sense of peace.

I gave him my once broken heart. We will celebrate our second wedding anniversary in a couple of months. A lot of great things have happened since then. But problems with work and school continue to be a bother, which leads to cookie binges, extra cream and sugar in coffee, and more dessert than necessary. Before I knew it I had gained 20 lbs.

I joined Weight Watchers. I counted each point,weighed myself religiously and finally refused to attend when I couldn't drop the weight. Once again instead of trying to resolve the real issues I made my weight my issue. The thing is it's not about the weight, not really. I think I knew that once but tend to keep forgetting it. I have to work on me and then I can take care of the weight.

Now that I remembered it or relearned it I decided to just relax a bit. I've been tracking what I eat but I focus more on quality instead of quantity. Just yesterday I wanted pizza. Before I would've picked up a personal pizza from the local take-out. But instead I chose to head down to the grocery and pick up a Lean Cuisine pizza. I debated on things like calories, fat, salt. What it came down to was toppings. I like veggie pizza and that's what I ate.

I've also begun to focus on the high I used to get when I exercised. I remember one day running and thinking "this is the best day." What made it great was the feeling of accomplishment I got from running. I'm more of a walker than runner. But at the time I pushed myself to run and when I realized I could do it I loved it. Today I ran again and enjoyed it. Right now as I glance down at my four-legged workout buddy I know we are both exhausted. But I can say, "this is the best day."

Baby Steps

"Run, Run, Run, Repeat."

That's the attention grabbing phrase on a T-shirt I wear when I work out. I was thinking about that T-shirt today as there was a time I lived that phrase. Anyone who's known me for some time remembers my heavier days before college. During college I added the freshman 20 to an already tiny and yet overweight frame. I don't even remember what size I was. But I do know that during my third year of college a friend's crash diet appealed to me and I lost 40 lbs.

My family didn't recognize me when they came to pick me up at the airport for Thanksgiving break. That was a good feeling. At that time in my life I ran everyday for several miles. Then I got a job and couldn't balance the stress and I began to eat more than I exercised. Don't worry, this is not a blog for self pity, but motivation. Today as I got up I decided I needed to be honest about a few things. I need to stop thinking about who I was and move forward. An interview I read in Shape magazine said the same thing. Quit trying to get your old body back. Instead move forward to a new , better, healthier body.

I also had  to be honest about some bad habits. First, I eat entirely too much junk food. People may think I don't but I do.  I just eat it while I'm driving, on the way to on on the way from somewhere. Other things I notice I eat too many servings when I am not even hungry. This behavior has now led to my new cycle: diet, diet, diet repeat. The last few days I've focused on eating only when hungry. Even then I ask "Am I really hungry? Or just bored, tired, sad, stressed, etc.?" You get the picture.

Guess what? I am rarely as hungry as I think I am. I went overboard the other day. I was at my grandmother's house and she'd made fettuccine Alfredo with chicken. I was hungry, but I didn't stop to ask how hungry I was. I ate the whole plate, which was enough for two people, and had some salad. The worst was that I had snacked on two stale donuts as she talked and cooked. By the time that fettuccine was passed to me I was actually good. I didn't need to eat. But it smelled so good. And she went to all the trouble. So I ate and felt very uncomfortable right after. Later, my husband ordered fried fish for dinner. I took one look and realized I couldn't eat it. I wouldn't eat it. I just would be repeating the crazy cycle of my life.

I want to get to a point where I enjoy running again. Where I can happily say I am living the phrase on my work out T-shirt. So aside from asking if I am really hungry I decided to take a few baby steps. Today I walked 2 miles and tried to push to speed walk when I could. Speed walking I realized is not possible when you are also walking a dog. Dogs only have two speeds and trying to go somewhere in between just led to a lot of me being dragged. But I'll keep on trying. Maybe soon I'll be going from baby steps to giant leaps.

Diet Cop

"I'm on a diet. Don't let me eat anything bad, OK?"

Every woman who has ever dieted has uttered this request to some friend, co-worker, relative or spouse at one time or another. Want to know the crazy thing? Once you ask someone to be your diet cop they'll do it. And you'll hate them for it. For some time now I have made my husband my diet cop only to regret it when I had a bad day and needed a treat. I'd been good all week I deserved it. How could someone deny me an ice cream treat from Sonic? Because I asked them to.

I put my husband in a lose-lose situation where if he didn't do what I asked he wasn't being supportive. If he did do as I asked then he was mean and not letting me enjoy my food. The person who needs to be responsible for my food is me. That being said I have a screwed up relationship with food. It is my comfort, my friend. It is my enemy when I look in the mirror, or have an upset stomach from overdoing it. In the end I blow my diet and the cycle starts all over again.

Diet, that's a screwed up word. It has the word "die" in it. So essentially when you ask somebody to be your diet cop you are asking them to kill you. To be more accurate you are asking them to let you suffer. Diets are not a good thing and they don't work. I say get rid of the diet cop and the diet altogether.On that note, starting now I am going to try and change the way I see food. Food is not a reward for good behavior. It is not a cure for bad day. And I certainly do not deserve it just because I sat in traffic and spotted a DQ sign on my way home. No food is nourishment and that is all it is. That didn't actually strike me as true until I watched an old episode of Star Trek. I'm a nerd, sue me.

Anyway, Captain Kirk, Chekhov and Uhura were held captive on some far away planet where life was mapped out and no one deviated from plans or asked questions. What I thought was funny was that some scantily clad girl with green hair and a bikini made out aluminum foil brought Kirk his dinner. At one point he asked "What is it?" She answered with a blank stare, "Nourishment." That was it. There was no adjectives, no sounds of appreciation. She didn't add "And it's yummy!" That would've been just silly and gone against the storyline. The point is the food was meant to nourish him. Everything else was unimportant.

Trying to change your outlook on food is hard when you have so many other things you associate food with. You eat ice cream to mend a broken heart. You tell family how much you love them and are thankful for them over a table of turkey. And we celebrate life with cake. In all that we forgot to take care of our bodies and to feed it what it needs. Food is nourishment and that is all. Yes, it can taste good but ultimately it is supposed to nourish us.

To all my readers, let's learn to love and nurture ourselves and escape the food is love cycle.

You eat when...

Got to love those Alli commercials. You eat when you're hungry. You eat when you're bored. Sometimes you don't know why you are eating. So take Alli, a magical pill that cuts the fat of all the food you do eat in half.  Yeah, not a good idea. I tried it once and realized it was an expensive way to ensure I went to the bathroom.

I like the idea of the commercials though. If your life revolves around eating then you're not really living are you? And you're certainly not going to lose weight or get healthy if the only exercise you get is running back and forth to the refrigerator. I decided I needed to come to terms with my eating habits. I picked up a copy of Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. Having read Breaking Free from Emotional Eating by Roth I know what the first step is. Eat only when you are hungry.

Simple, right? Actually it is. The other unspoken guideline is of course to make better choices about your food when you eat. As I said I read this before and as simple as everything was I still couldn't stick to it. And here's why: I have to be accountable for what I eat. I can't have sugar everyday and lament that I can't lose weight. It doesn't work that way.

Today I focused on that first step and it really got me through the day. When I did feel like snacking I stuck to the carrots, fruit, or whole wheat cereal. Even then I only ate if I was actually hungry. I did leave to run a few errands and found myself contemplating an iced coffee from Starbucks. Iced coffee isn't bad, especially when you have it with skim milk and Splenda like I do. But I know me. I will inevitably end up with a slice of pumpkin bread, or a brownie, or even one of those cake pops. I'll love it in the beginning but then feel bad when I realize how much bad stuff was in that little treat. So for now I will just avoid it and continue to read on and maybe next time I can learn to trust myself around food.

Sugarpie, Honeybunch, I can't help myself

Oh, a nail is being hammered between my eyes. Day three of no sugar did not go well. It started out well enough until I couldn't stop coughing. I reached for a cup of tea and remembered no sugar, no sweeteners, no honey. I debated with myself about the consequences of having just a little honey in my tea. I couldn't believe I was allowing some media quack to get me think of honey as the new gateway drug.

I sighed and poured a teaspoon of honey into my tea. Oh, it was delicious, and the gates opened. I planned for the teaspoon of honey to be my treat. I was so certain that would be my one slip today. That is until lunch rolled around. I've been at home most of the day fussing with my thesis and I thought "I want to get away for a couple of hours." I decided to drop off some items at Half Price Books and use the cash to buy a new book. I was heading home when I realized it was two in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten anything since 8 in the morning. Even though I was hungry I decided I could wait for a can of soup when I got home. I'm still nursing a cold and have no idea why I decided to go anywhere as snotty as I am.

Around the corner from my house is a Sonic. Any junk food or cream slush lover knows that Sonic serves half price drinks from 2 to 4. Perfect window. I rolled through the drive-thru and ordered a large Sprite and a iced mocha latte. I normally don't like cold chocolate but something in me just had to have it. I took two sips of the coffee and threw it out. The Sprite has been my companion for most of the day. When I finished it I made more tea with sweetener. I reasoned that I hadn't had all of my latte or any candy or cookies so I should be fine. And then the pain came.

I've finished my tea and now the sugar taunts me. Yes, it tastes so good but now it hurts so bad. I realize I am not well and I could just have a lingering sinus headache. But the sharp, painful, hammering between my eyes suggests otherwise. But, who knows my head still feels like it's underwater. One thing I do know is detoxing does not do well for me. Especially when I am a snotty, congested, pathetic mess.

If anything this has taught me something. I can go without candy, cookies and sugar for the most part. But denying myself, just saying something is absolutely banned does not work. Well, it does for a little while and then it knocks you really hard between the eyes. Not giving in, turning myself into a martyr for the scale is just as ridiculous as turning myself into sinner for wanting a sweetener in my coffee. The goal is moderation. Now if only I can learn to live it.

On the good ship Lollipop

Day two and this no sugar thing is starting to annoy me. I'm still not feeling well so all I want to do is burn the itchiness out of my throat with tea. Problem: I like sugar in my tea. I like sugar in my coffee. I like to have toast with honey or cookies, or something sweet and gooey to go with my tea or coffee. Realizing I may have made an error in judgement is more annoying than not having sugar. I have tea with unsweetened almond milk and buttered toast. No honey. I reason that in the state I am in I can not tell the difference anyway.

A couple of hours later and all I want to do is go back to sleep and my eyes hurt. It could be my sinuses. It could be I am finally coming down from the sugar binge I had a few days ago. Either way I head back to bed. I wake up again to find my dog staring at me with a confused look on his face. I decide to move around and work on cleaning my neglected kitchen.

I try to rationalize that having an artificial sweetened or sugar free something isn't like I had sugar. But I know that's not true. I actually read the box of artificial sweetener I keep for coffee to double check my argument. The sweetener did have sugar listed in the nutritional information. Less than a gram. Who was it going to hurt? I remembered I didn't know what grams translated to in teaspoons, etc. Crud. I put it back and continued with my mopping.

After that's done I am worn out and hungry. What I want is a cup of Chai with cream and honey and gingersnaps. I settle for a banana and a cup of  chicken noodle. I realize the noodles are not wheat noodles but Campbell's doesn't make chicken and wheat noodle soup. Maybe I am not being as strict as I need to be but beggars can't be choosers when it comes to chicken noodle soup.

It's dinner time and I really want some ice cream. My fever is breaking and I want something cold. If it were something cold and sweet so much the better. Instead I make wheat penne pasta and add some diced tomatoes to lean beef and chopped onions. My husband has spaghetti with garlic bread. I still want ice cream. A dipped cone from DQ or McDonald's or maybe just a large Dr. Pepper.

Oh well, I guess I'll settle for a glass of water. It's better for me anyway. Tomorrow is when I get rid of fruit.  I'm not sure I am up for that. Having a banana got me through not having any sugar today. I will say not having any sugar made me appreciate the sweetness of the banana so much more.

It had a delicate sweetness that wasn't at all like the banana flavored snowcones I remember from Bud's Snowballs. Mmm, snowcones. My favorite was the Swiss Almond Cocoa also known as Hawaiian Snow. Gosh, now I am drooling. Ok, enough of this for tonight or else I will get a sugar rush.

Sugar, oh honey honey

First day of the sugar detox went fairly well. Except that I already have some kind of sinus cold and wouldn't have noticed a sugar detox headache anyway. My ears won't stop popping and my head feels like it's under water. Feeling ill agrees with my diet goals. I avoided all sugar except for the peach I had after a large cup of chicken noodle soup. Tomorrow it gets harder as I attempt to cut out white breads, potatoes, and white pasta. I'm ready. I have a loaf of 100 % whole wheat in the fridge and whole wheat pasta in the pantry. I was surprised that these items do have some sugar in them. But I guess you can't get away from it in processed food.

The hard part was as I perused the grocery store for bread and soup all the temptation called to me.The grocery store cleverly sticks the bread and fruit next to the baked goods. Oh, I love to have tea and cookies when I don't feel good. I stuck to my guns and avoided the sweets. Then I headed to the bananas remembering I  needed to have some fruit in the house for my husband's lunch and breakfast. Nilla wafers sit next to the bananas urging me to me make banana pudding. Thankfully I didn't head for the strawberries or I would've been assaulted by whipped cream and Angel food cake. Sugar, you are everywhere.

Speaking of which I decided to forgo my usual "sick" drink: Sprite.  I browsed the juice section and grabbed a bottle of unsweetened tea. I read the label and was confused. There were too many poly this or poly that's to belong in a glass of tea. I was under the impression that tea was boiled leaves and water. I decided to stick to soup and water. If I want tea I can boil some water and tea bags at home.

So all in all day one was not so bad. Let's see how tomorrow goes.

I'm addicted to you and I just can't get enough

Those words have never been truer for me these days. I worked for a bookstore formerly owned by Borders group until today. The last few days have been a nightmare as co-workers and I scrambled to close up a store and ship books to another store with little direction and no supplies. When we finally were able to box up merchandise we played the waiting game with Fedex. Between lugging and boxing books, magazines and office supplies I found myself sitting around talking and quite often eating sugar.

The to-go brownies from Friday's kept me sane when I thought I was going to lose my nerve. The chocolate and almond-covered-toffee bar  from the candy shop made me smile when all I wanted to do was  cry over my frustration and exhaustion. Brownies, cookies, donuts, sweetened coffee, tea, soft drinks, and candy all made it to my list of must have food items this week. And I've gained three pounds.

Pish posh! Not a lot you say? It's a lot when I was 147 lbs. at the end of last week and am now 150 lbs. To top it off (no pun intended) I'm only 4'10. Yikes! Back in the danger zone of weight gain. As I was driving home today from my last day at work I heard the lyrics to the Black-Eyed Peas song. And I thought that's it, we should never identify with a Black-Eyed Peas song. Seriously, all kidding aside I need to do something and stop fussing about it.

I had a moment to catch some of Rachael Ray the other day and she was speaking to Dr. Fred Pescatore of The Hamptons Diet about how much sugar the average American consumes in a day: 33 teaspoons which translates to 155 lbs of sugar per year. Ugh. No wonder I have so much trouble with my weight. I'm an emotional eater and I LOVE my sugar. Now, I am not one for fad diets but he got my attention. Later in the show Pescatore suggested a sugar detox for a viewer of the show. The chosen viewer revealed her video log of her detox and her problems with it. Headaches, moodiness, frustration with a restricted food list.  But even she had to admit sugar was running her life and weight. So for the next three days I am going to try this out. Just the Detox and I will report on each day. Hopefully my sugar addiction will be curbed a bit. Until then, where's my Sprite?

http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/show/segments/view/curing-your-sweet-tooth/

Mirror, Mirror

"I don't ever think of myself as a fat person until I look in the mirror."

 I thought this was an odd thing for a person to say. But when a coworker said it to me a few days ago I agreed. I realize now I have the same quirk. But sometimes my mirrors are other people and not just the glass that reflects my image. My husband is incredibly athletic with a thin build that betrays his ability to consume a large dinner and beer. When we are together I often compare myself to him and feel wrong somehow. As if I am in the wrong body. I'm the girl and yet I am not as small framed as he is. And I often wonder if we make a laughable couple. A real life Mr. and Mrs. Jack Spratt.  I walk past other women on a daily basis of all shapes and sizes and find my gaze lingering on the frail, or delicate girls with flat chests and narrow waists. I don't find the spray tanned athletic blondes with their Juicy emblazoned shorts all that appealing and yet I envy them as much as their petite counterparts. They make being pretty, thin and young seem easily attainable.

I have my curvy crushes as well. I love Christina Hendricks for her talent and her ability to wear her curves with class and pride. And she's always well coiffed and dressed. I would kill to look like her. Then I remember I am curvy. I have a few extra pounds as well but I am curvy. And yet, I am not satisfied and I still compare.

Today I saw myself as everyone else does and I was surprised. As I walked across campus to meet about my never ending project/thesis I saw myself in the glass of the university library. Funny thing was I was happy with my appearance until that moment. As I dressed this morning I thought I felt good, comfortable, rested, healthy and happy.  But still the reflection contradicted my mood. I noticed that roundness of my body. The girth of my once small waist and athletic body.  I sighed and climbed the stairs to the library. I got little work done at the library and returned home in an effort to avoid the skinny girl at the computer across from me slurping her venti java chip frappucino with whipped cream. Ugh. I remembered my husband telling me that "people like that tend to live a life around the gym and generally aren't happy." That's his mantra for me when I feel fat or low.

I realize how evil my mirror truly is. Much like the favored one of Snow White's wicked queen that reflected her beautiful and  appropriately green eyes it is fickle, cruel, and brutally honest. I tried to shrug off the bad feeling on my drive home from campus. But it lingered, poisoning my efforts to write, or get genuine work done. I hear my husband coming home from work and  I force myself to return to my life,the life I think is great until I  look at the mirror. I guess the question of the day is do we forgo the mirror entirely? Images of shattered broken glass and being blissfully ignorant of my expanding waistline confuse and frighten me. Perhaps we should  ask the mirror to be honest but kinder. We want the mirror to reflect  a clearer representation of us,  a representation that shows how even with our flaws someone else out there loves us for us.

Jennifer Hudson

Diet commercials. We've all seen them. Celebrity spokespersons and users alike spouting the benefits of joining a weight loss program. To be fair Weight Watchers (WW),  and Jenny Craig claim they are lifestyle choices and not diets, but just the same they tout the success of their programs and forget the losses. Case in point, me. I joined WW years ago and lost several pounds. I was just 10 lbs. shy of my goal weight when my lack of funds made it impossible to continue the program. I still looked good for my wedding. Just not as good as I had hoped. I know it must be something about me that lets the weight creep back on. I have a love for sugar when I have mountains of papers to write, when there is no end to my frustration, and yes when I celebrate milestones. Geneen Roth would have a field day with me. We could be binge buddies. Sensing my frustration, (ok, I gripe about my weight on a daily basis), my husband bought me a membership for WW. I thought "great, now I could lose that last 10 lbs. plus the additional 15 I added on after I married. "The good news was that WW had changed the plan and now fruit didn't have to be deducted from my daily allowance of points. For anyone who doesn't know on WW you get a daily point intake based on your weight loss goals and each food item is designated an amount of  points per serving. In the past fruit lovers suffered as certain fruits had a zero point value while others could have substantially more. Well now the rules had changed and I could fill up on as much fruit as I wanted to curb my need for sugar. Hurrah! Well, I guess the new rules don't apply to me as I struggled to lose a single pound for four months. I didn't and still don't understand it. I ate according to the rules, worked out and abstained as much sugar as I could and still no change. Well, that's not true. I lost five lbs. after a sore throat made it impossible to eat anything but chicken soup. Unfortunately,I gained it back as soon as I could swallow solid foods. After paying for months and not seeing the scale budge I gave up and canceled my account. Now, I don't diet so much as try not to overdo it. I try to avoid the scale and instead try to walk faster or push harder. Still, it irks me to watch TV and see Jennifer Hudson, and all those other WW  "losers" gaining confidence after losing weight and saying "losing weight clicked for me."  In all honesty the concept is easy. Eat right, exercise more and lose weight. And yet, losing weight is hard. The weight loss industry is a billion dollar industry, perhaps more than that. Why doesn't weight loss click for all of us? Or does it just not click with our body even as much as we try to enforce it? Does our body just give up after years of torturing it, denying it, overworking it just to like what we see in the mirror?