Lowering the Feed Limit

The Girl went with me to Weight Watchers this week and once again I was up. However, this time she didn’t “yell” at me or tell me that it was all my fault because I haven’t been tracking. See, I know I haven’t been tracking and it doesn’t help my self esteem to have my skinny 20 year old daughter haranguing me about my inability to stay motiviated.

She was much better this time. She sat next to me and kept saying, “Mom, you can totally do this. I’ll help you.”

My husband has offered me $15 a pound for whatever I lose by the weigh-in after my birthday. So far, I’m about 2 pounds down still.

Her incentive is for tracking. That’s one of my biggest problems so she’s offered to find a nice, low or fat free cupcake recipe (chocolate) and make me cupcakes next weekend. Cupcakes just for me! But I have to track all week.

So far, I tracked all day yesterday and kept a deficit, so we’ll see how it goes.

On Sunday, Beloved and I had an “interesting chat” – read: argument – about my weight loss and other “goals” I have for my life.

For some time I’ve been having a loss of self-confidence crisis. I see much of what I try to do every day as failure. I don’t get the things done I say I want to do and I see people all around me getting the things I want.

I follow lots of writers on Twitter and on Facebook and I know that every Tuesday is new release day and I get to watch as all these people have new books out while I struggle to finish one I’ve been working on for several years. And I worry that I’ll never have the writing career I’ve always dreamed of.

Same with Weight Watchers. I see other members losing weight and hitting their goals while I’ve been a member for over three years and haven’t gotten there yet.

The argument started when I suggested a restaurant for lunch after Mass and he said, “How is that going to work with your diet?” and I lost it.

I heard his comment as suggesting that I’d over eat there and once again sabotage myself. So, instead, we went to his parents’ house for lunch and I sat in a bedroom and skipped the meal entirely.

Yes, it was childish and yes, it was passive aggressive, but I should know by now that kind of thing never gets me the results I want. Which was to have him pursue me and try to convince me that everything would be okay and I wasn’t fat and he trusted me to eat in a good way.

That didn’t happen. He came to the door and knocked once to tell me that lunch was ready and when I said I wasn’t going to eat, he left. Never tried to talk me out of this and even told our daughter to leave me alone when she wanted was afraid I was going to “starve” myself.

He says in 22 years of marriage, he knows that if he says anything, it’ll make matters worse, but I still hope for an arm around my shoulder and the reassurance that everything is okay.

However, he told me later that he just doesn’t believe I want to lose weight (also that I don’t really want to get published again) because he doesn’t see me “fighting” for these things.

You know, I watch the Biggest Loser and I see those people literally fighting for their weight loss. They get up at 3 am and head to the gym just to get a couple of hours of work out in so they’ll be that far ahead.

I don’t do that. I even make excuses to not go. Lately, it’s been body pain (sciatica and now apparently some back pain). Also, I’m still struggling after the loss of my mother so there are some grief issues.

But I’ve looked deep down and tried to find that desire to fight for this. I don’t know how to find it. I don’t know how to find the motivation to get to the gym every day or at least a couple of times a week. I don’t feel like my health is in jeopardy. I’m not trying to loss for a special event. I just want to get back to the weight I was the day of my transplant. Maybe that’s not a big enough goal as that was almost 8 years ago.

This week I’ve tried to do better. I went to the gym yesterday morning before either of the kids were up.Today I’ll go to the hip hop abs class which I love and I’ve been tracking better.

I got a personal smoothie maker for Christmas so I stocked up on fruit and have been making smoothies for breakfast and even lunch and snacks.

I’m trying.

Oh, I was down 2.8 on Monday but I think that has more to do with the lessening of the sciatica pain and possible bowel relief from that. However, it is a victory of sorts and I hope I can continue it.

BREAKFAST – Smoothie made with:
1 cup light soy milk – 80 calories
banana – 69 calories
pineapple – 76 calories
Sugar free instant
breakfast – 70 calories

TOTAL – 295

WEIGHT WATCHERS MEETING
Up 1.4 = 170.4
Topic – Perserverence
Perserverence – to persist in spite of counter influences, opposition or discouragement.
The discouragement part is what speaks to me right now.

I need to:
Be Patient
Persist
Perservere
Plan and Prepare
Don’t Quit

LUNCH – Roly Poly Nut and Honey Wrap – 373 (although it probably was less as I had them make it without avocados but the website doesn’t give the nutrition info that way)
Lay’s light chips – 75
TOTAL: 440

THOUGHTS – I didn’t want to go over 170 but this week I did. I didn’t log my food at all. I know I’m more aware of my eating when i log. Why is it so hard for me to remember, or not so much to remember,  but just do it. Today I commit to logging all my food. I will be down next week.

SNACK

1 peppermint candy at the doc’s office – 20

Banana – 105

66 grams of light ice cream – 133

TOTAL – 296

DINNER – We went out to a Marine Corp League Christmas party and it was buffet style so this is me estimating. It was held in a beer distributor’s conference room so the drinks were free.

Light Beer – 110

Blueberry beer (I just had to try it) – 260 (Should NOT have had it)

roast beef (3 oz) 296

mashed potatoes – 236

gravy (1/4 cup) – 31

roll – 150

TOTAL – a whopping 1084 – I think this shows the value of knowing the calories before you eat!

“DESSERT” – they had tiramisu which doesn’t tempt me at all, but my father-in-law had made little chocolate Marine Corp symbols. I ate one. Guess it had 151 calories (that’s how much is in 1 oz of SYMPHONY milk chocolate bar).

BODYBUGG TOTALS

Consumed: 2276

Burned: 2246

SURPLUS – 30

I actually thought it was more but when I looked at the stats to update here I saw that I’d logged another nut & honey wrap instead of the ice cream, but I’d also forgotten the roll.

CONCLUSION:

Okay, so I surplus. It could have been worse but could have been better. Next time, I will stay away from the beer! (If there is a next time of course.) I will be better on Tuesday.

How was your day?

Today was weigh in day again and I was up. I was up above 170 (170.4) and I truly believed that I would never get that high again.

Okay, I told myself I never wanted to be that high again, but today I was.

It was a bit of a wake up call for me. I haven’t been tracking my food and I KNOW that’s what the problem is. I don’t eat as much when I have to write it down.

I bought a Disney Princess diary when we were in Disney World. Yes, it’s like a little girl’s diary with a lock and everything. I couldn’t get the lock to work but that’s okay. I only bought it because I thought I’d be sitting alone waiting for the family and I wanted something to write in.

Today, I turned that into my food log. I don’t want to just write down what I eat. I want to write down why I ate it and how I feel about it and whatever I want to as far as the food goes. I hope to post these things here to help me stay accountable.

Tomorrow I’ll post my feelings about today. It’s late and we went to a party tonight. I need to get to bed, but I promise to update this tomorrow, or possibly later tonight, depending on how the sciatica treats me tonight.

So, the family spent Thanksgiving week at Disney World, thanks to my in-laws. The Boy gets that week off from school every year so it is a good time to take a vacation. The Girl had to miss a couple of days of classes at college but she’d gotten everything she needed to do and worked on homework on the way to Orlando and one night there, I think.

I did a lot of walking around the parks, of course. My sciatica has been acting up a lot and for awhile I was worried I’d mess up the vacation by being in pain. However, it seems that walking actually helps. The pain is mostly at night, first thing in the morning and a few seconds of twinges after sitting in a car or on a ride.

I tried to add a couple of pictures here but can’t seem to do it. I need to talk to my webmaster/husband about this.

Anyway, back to my life and all.

We got back home from Disney on Saturday and Sunday I had a big emotional breakdown.

It started because there were two chocolate drizzled brownies left from a trip to a mall where my father-in-law bought a pack for me from a Godiva store. I ate both of them and Beloved caught me.

I knew I had to weigh in on Monday and I felt like a failure. Yep, there’s that word again.

It wasn’t just the food, although that was a big part of it. I know what I have to do weight loss wise, but I keep sabotaging myself time after time.

However, it was also the state the house was in when we got home. It was a mess. I’m not the world’s greatest housekeeper. In fact, I might be in the running for the world’s worst, and seeing it after a week away, I was disgusted with myself for letting it look like this.

Let me point out, there isn’t garbage all over or rats or anything – mainly, it’s just clutter. Still, though, I’m at home every day. It’s shouldn’t look like this. I gotta get back to Flylady/Sidetracked Home Executives.

Then there’s the writing. I did National Novel Writing Month in November and finished, so that’s good, but it’s been five years – almost six – since my last book was published. Why can’t I get my act together there either?

Well, I went to Mass at 6 pm as we always do and as I was leaving, the pianist for the choir stopped me and said, “So, Nancy, how are you?”

I told her I was okay physically (which Beloved said is a lie but at the time I wasn’t in any pain) but not so good emotionally. She asked why.

I told her I would start crying and this wonderful friend said, “I have tissues.”

I told her briefly about all the stuff and she was so kind. I told her I feel like a failure in so many areas of my life and she said she’d been there and that I’m talented and she has my book and loves it and “I’ll never get rid of it.”

Then she pointed out that the Boy is seven and we adopted him as an infant after I was published. Actually we got him right before I got my first book contract, so she reminded me that I’ve probably had other things going on than writing.

As for the weight loss, she told me that she’s been struggling too, but finally decided, “screw it if you body can’t take a joke.”

I love her passion for life and she made me feel better.

THEN I weighed in on Monday, convinced I’d gained probably 3 pounds. That’s what my father-in-law said he’d gained and I figured I’d walked as much as he did and ate like he did.

However, I maintained!!! After a week at Disney, eating at restaurants, having snacks and all, I maintained.

This week I’m back on the wagon. Not tracking as much as I should. Gotta get back to that.

Today I commit to tracking and doing at least 30 minutes of walking. I can’t do much else with this sciatica, but maybe it will help the pain.

So, yesterday was weigh in day and again I was up. Since Mom’s death I’ve been having a hard time getting back into my tracking/eating right mode. I thought it might be a good idea for me to revisit the reasons I want to do this.

I’m a Biggest Loser addict and Jillian is always getting her people to dig deep and look at all the emotional/psychological reasons why they’re fat. I’ve looked. I don’t find anything deep.

My parents didn’t leave me. I wasn’t abused. I didn’t have some childhood or even adult trauma that has made me overweight.

I’m overweight because food tastes good and I eat not necessarily because I’m hungry but because food tastes good. They never really address that in Weight Watchers.

Anyway, I have to dig deep and find my motivation, so here is my list of reasons for wanting to lose weight, in no particular order.

1. I lost 40 pounds back in 1999 and kept it off for two years until my transplant. I liked how I looked back then. I want that back.

2. I want my clothes to fit better. I hate having pants be too tight around the waist.

3. I want my blood pressure to be lower. It’s not bad now, but it could be better.

4. I want to be able to say I’ve accomplished this. Lately, and for some time, I haven’t been feeling like there’s much in my life that I’ve accomplished and this is something I can do. I hope.

5. I want to be able to be happy when I look in the mirror or see a picture of myself. I want to have a beautiful picture of me to someday put on the back of a book!

6. I want to be a Weight Watcher leader. I want to have a job where I stand in front of people and motivate them.

There, ladies and gents, are my reasons. I want to get my motivation back.

I am not a failure.

I am not a failure.

I am not a failure.

If I tell myself this enough, maybe I’ll believe it.

I hate going to the gym.

Well, not HATE, exactly, but I really have to work to get myself to go. And today I’m feeling really awful about myself.

If you read this blog much, and I know no one really does because I don’t update it, you know that I often don’t feel good about myself. At least that’s what it seems like if you read these posts. Seems like the only time I update is when I’m feeling down.

Maybe it is the only time. Then, fine, that’s when I do it. Maybe that’s because that’s when I feel the need to write all this junk out.

About six or seven weeks ago, my mother died. And, darn it, I miss her!

Anyway, I was doing great, weight wise, before that. I was 10 pounds from my goal weight and the lowest I’d been in years! I was feeling great about myself and confident that I could do this.

Then I had a whirlwind of travel, funerals (she had two – one in Ohio where she lived and one in PA where she grew up and where she raised us kids and where her family is), and FOOD. Families do that, you know. They feed you.

Anyway, after being away from Weight Watchers about two weeks, I’d only gained two pounds, which I felt was pretty good, given everything.

However, I haven’t been able to get back on track since then.

I’ve been having some minor back/hip pain which my chiropractor says could be stress related – since, of course, there’s been some stress. However, my appointments with her have been at the same time as the fun classes at the Y – hip hop and kickboxing. I love the classes and they push me in ways I wouldn’t myself. I took two of the classes before I went to see the chiropractor and since she wants to see me every other day until the pain is gone, I’ve missed the classes since then (they are on Mon, Wed, and Fridays – same as my appt.).

I’m still wearing my bodybugg and wanting to get back on track, but today I feel like it’s not happening and that goes for so much else in my life right now.

Tomorrow my father-in-law and I are flying up to Ohio again and renting a truck to drive a bunch of my mom’s stuff back here. I guess some of what I’m feeling is that I have to face all that, and while I know it’s all a part of the grieving process and all, I, frankly, wish it were all behind me.

Add to that all the normal stresses of being a mom and right now I feel overwhelmed. No wonder I want to eat and then just curl up on a bed and read a book!

Well, I have been given ONE task to do today – instead of trying to do everything. I need to mail an appeal to our insurance company and then I’m going to the gym and try to get some exercise in.

Pray for me. And thanks for stopping by.

I haven’t updated for awhile but not because things have been going badly. In fact, since getting my bodybugg, my weight has pretty consistently gone down. Today, I’m at 165# which is ten pounds from my Weight Watchers goal. I’d really like to get to 143, but I can start working for Weight Watchers at 155.

Last year at this time, I wanted to be at this weight, but I didn’t get here. I lost my motivation after that and then I had that problem with thyroid surgery and then discovering that I had had cancer and needed to go through radiation treatment.

However, now it feels like it’s really going to happen this time. I know it’s not over when I get to my goal weight. First of all, I want to keep going and get to 143, maybe 140, but if I can see 155, I’ll be thrilled!

It isn’t just because I’d love to work for Weight Watchers, but there is this person I know who talks almost all the time about how she’s trying to lose weight, but folks, she’s not. I see her more these days and I see confirmation of what I already knew. She has dessert at every meal even after two or more helpings of whatever the main dish was.

I know I was probably the same way before, but my thinking has changed about what is a healthy portion or what “being full” feels like. I keep hoping that she’ll see my success at this weight loss and she’ll want it, too.

She doesn’t walk well because of a past problem and I know that if she loses some weight, she’ll walk better and her overall health will be better. She’s so much less active now than she used to be.

I love this woman and it would be so sad if something could be done for her overall health and she’s just not willing to do it.

Anyway, I know she’s not ready to do anything but all I can do is keep plodding on and praying that she’ll see how happy I am about this and take it to heart.

What
is it about Thursdays?

I’ve
noticed something over the last month or so. I can do so well
counting points or calories Monday through Wednesday. I get weighed
in on Mondays so I’m all revved up and excited to track and stay
within my points range (or calories now with the Bodybugg) but
something happens on Thursdays. Every week. I don’t even have to
realize what day it is and generally I don’t consciously think about
it being Thursday until I see that I’m hungry all day, even if I eat
exactly the same stuff I did yesterday.

On
Thursdays, I’m more likely to feel the need for a mid-morning snack,
something I never have any other day of the week.

On
Thursdays, my normal lunchtime salad, which I love and will even have
at dinner sometimes when the family’s having something more calorie
filled, just doesn’t appeal to me.

On
Thursdays, I’ll find myself wandering around the kitchen, just
wanting “something.”

I
can’t explain it.

I
do fine the rest of the week. I’ll stay in my calorie range over the
weekend, and to be honest, while I didn’t eat right today, I still
have my normal deficit because I walked/ran a mile while the Boy had
basketball practice. I think because I’m aware of the Thursday Thing,
I moved more while making dinner and other times during the day.

Still,
I wish I could explain it. Ideas?

Oh,
and for those of you wondering, I was down another two pounds this
week! Even my Weight Watcher leader noticed that I’ve finally
“figured it out.”

Well, I’ve finished my second full week wearing this little gem.

Last week I figured I’d lose about 1.5 pounds so when I lost only .2 I was pretty upset. I couldn’t figure it out.

On Thursday, I had my coaching session with a Bodybugg coach. She walked me through the website and showed me some things I didn’t know about even with all my playing around on the site. She also said to give things another week and see what we might need to change.

Well, I started weighing my food after talking to her because, as she said, I might have been underestimating how big a portion I’m eating.

Well, what I found explains EVERYTHING – all the problems I’ve been having getting to my goal, all the weeks I should have been down and wasn’t, EVERYTHING!

Popcorn has more calories than I ever could have imagined.

I LOVE popcorn and clearly was underestimating how much of it I eat. I looked one night at how many calories I had left and thought I would figure out how much popcorn I could have. Turned out to be about two handfuls!

Not even a bowl full.

Seeing this, I realized that at least twice a week, I was eating half a big bowl (shared with Beloved), and I was assuming it was only a few cups and totally messing up the points (on WW) or calories.

This week I weighed everything (well, after Thursday’s coaching session).

I lost THREE pounds this week!!! Three pounds!!!

And that was being sick yesterday and not really being able to exercise much. We went to Pizza Hut on Friday and I went out with my writers’ group on Saturday! And I lost 3 pounds!

I love this little thing!!!