E2E Start

I'm so excited about starting a new challenge!

Starting information:
Weight: 222 (on mom's scale.  I'll update on Sunday when I get back to my scale)
Waist: 36
Hips: 48
Thigh: 28
Just started C25K week 2 runs
Been doing Jillian Michaels 30DS workout 1

Goals:
Weight: <200 - onederland! No longer obese
Finish C25K program - 14 weeks to do an 8-week program = do-able
Sign up for a 5K (this may be difficult as April is early in upstate NY) - I want to run 2 races this year - run, not walk
Finish Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred
Do 3 mindful practices from the book every week
Meditate every day, even if it's just a mindful meal
Work out for 30 minutes most days - PUSH myself
Blog every day
Support my buddy and other challenge bloggers

Book: Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time, by Pavel Somov

My biggest challenges:
The hardest things for me are going to be PUSHING myself physically and meditating every day. 

When I work out, I tend to try something and then stop when it gets hard.  It's not terrible.  I can feel myself getting stronger - but I'm not challenging myself enough.  I've thought of a couple ways to get better at this.  First, I'm going to make a chart with goals and report to y'all every day on progress.  Next, I may possibly try to find someone to help in real life. I'm thinking about asking someone from the fire department to lift weights with me.  May, may not.  My sister did crossfit for a while and sent me several of their workouts.  I'd love to have a trainer to push me, but don't have the money.

I view meditating as something that I get to do after everything else is done, so I rarely get to it.  I need to make that a priorirty and will put it on the chart that I'll report on.  This is important!  When I make this a bigger part of my life, everything else will get better.

Here are my challenge pants!  They're size 16 Levis and you can see that I can't even get them on now.

 Gotta run - I'm using my sister's computer and it's time to get off.  Talk to y'all soon!

Edit:
need to add some required things -
Guiding quote: Thoughts become things - choose the good ones
Buddy: I'm not sure yet - will edit again when I know (Maybe it's Eaba?) (note: I'll be in planes all day Sunday, coming back east)
I commit to comment on at least 3 blogs per week - yay! Looking forward to supporting you guys and being supported.
I vow to NOT QUIT!  Most people don't get this opportunity to turn their lives around with all this structure and support, and I'm going to make the best of it!

The Airplane Story

I used frequent flyer miles to fly from upstate NY to Oregon.  That means that it was 3 flights:  Albany, NY to Washington DC, DC to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Portland, OR.  Miracle of miracles, there were no snow or rain storms and all three flights left on time, I made all the connections, my luggage arrived with me. It was a beautiful thing.

The third flight even had an empty seat between me and the lady on the aisle - which is where it gets interesting.  You know how sometimes people can smell like they've been drinking a lot, like alcohol comes out of their pores?  Well, she did.  She was shaking her hands and moving her feet like she was extreemely tense, and I was hoping that someone would sit between us so whatever interesting stuff was going to happen would happen to someone else, not me.  No such luck.  First, she said that her first plane ride ever ended in a crash ... and the second one too. (yeah, uh huh), so she was hopped up on zanax and stuff. She said other stuff too that couldn't possibly be true, like she lived in Phoenix, but then later she said she lived in San Francisco.

Anyway, when the stewardess came around to offer drinks, this lady wanted a vodka cranberry but only had cash (and USAirways only takes credit cards).  So she asked me to buy her a drink and gave me a $100 gift card from restaurant.com.  Then she took back the gift card and gave me a $50 bill.  I thought, great, now this lady is going to expect me to buy her $50 worth of booze, so I pretended to be asleep for the rest of the flight.  She fell asleep too, or passed out. I wonder if she was going through some kind of withdrawal before she got the drink.

So now I have $50 that I didn't have before.  I'm gonna take that money and go see if I can find any decent workout/yoga clothes that fit.  It's hard to justify spending money because I DO have sweats, but since the money fell into my lap - I'll look at it as a gift.

I picked a mantra - up on the header of my blog.  Thoughts become things - choose the good ones.  It's not original - it's from Mike Dooley from http://www.tut.com/, and the phrase is registered to him.  I'll figure out how to keep it somewhere on my page but give him credit, 'cause I like it!

Make good choices all!

Day After Christmas

Hope everyone had a Christmas that was happy and full of joy!

In my family, we give gifts that are not expensive - but we give a LOT of them, and open one person at a time, round and round until we're through.  My 6-year old niece lost interest about 2/3 of the way through.  I guess there IS such a thing as too many presents!

The exercise room in my sister's development is close to her place and has plenty of equipment.  It was easy to skip out for an hour yesterday to take care of my exercising business, and relatively easy to stay away from the eggnog (although I did fall into some fudge).  I logged it all though, and was around 1600-1700 for the day, including some great hard cider.  I haven't found a scale yet, but mom says there's one in the garage I can use.

The last week before I left was the only week since I started keeping track in September that I had a gain.  I was 223.6 a week ago, and 227.0 early Saturday morning before I left to get on the plane.  I did all the right stuff with eating and exercise last week (I possibly didn't eat enough on a few days), so I think I'm hitting a plateau, not really gaining.  My goal was to be at 224 at the end of the year, which is possible although I won't know for sure until I get back to my home scale.

I suspect losing next year is going to be MUCH more difficult than this past fall.  I lost 34 pounds with the CDCC, but I"m suspecting that I'll struggle to lose 25 pounds with E2E.  That's OK.  25-ish pounds will get me to Onederland!  Woo hoo!  That's going to be the weight goal for E2E.  Other goals will be waist and hip measurements and some workout goals, like be halfway through C25K so I can run (actually run) a 5K by Memorial Day, or number of pushups or chinups, or actually complete Jillian Michaels 30DS.

I'm still thinking through what the actual goals will be, but I'm enjoying seeing and feeling my muscles.  I recognize that a muscular me will weigh more than a non-muscular me, and I want to de-emphasize weight as the ultimate goal in favor of health and ability to DO stuff, or possibly use pants size as the ultimate measure.  As I wrote - still thinking through that.

Anyway - me and the tight pants I brought with me are going to go on our merry way for now.  Make good choices all!

Preparing

I'm preparing for the E2E challenge (even though I'm not sure I'll get into it).  If I get into it, I wanna be ready with the outfit and the book, and well on the way to picking out a mantra.  I'll be on the opposite end of the country when Mir picks participants and the challenge starts, so I won't be able to participate if I don't get ready before I go.

So I went shopping at my favorite store, the Salvation Army.  It's better than it sounds because this store is in an upscale neighborhood, meaning I've found several Ralph Lauren shirts and sweaters, Nine West shoes, etc, etc.  Lots of nice stuff for cheap (which is a plus if I only wear it for a few months before it's too big).  Today I got 2 skintight pairs of jeans (Just My Size size 20, Bill Blass size 18) and a pair of size 16 Levis that I can't even pull up my legs, much less zip.  I got a semi-tight dress too, and a tight skirt and a small sweater.

And I picked out the book.  It's called eating the moment: 141 mindful practices to overcome overeating one meal at a time, by Pavel Somov.  It'll continue the mindfulness practice I started during the Christmas Dress Challenge that's been so radically helpful to my sanity.

I took pictures of me in the pants, dress and skirt and put the book on my Amazon wish list to buy the second I get into the challenge.  I'm all set.  Just in case (fingers crossed).



Here's my fat ass shoehorned into one pair of the jeans (the size 20). Yes, I am standing funny.  These jeans just cry for 3-inch heels and I'm not used to them!

Interestingly, it looks like my bum is getting smaller, but my shoulders are getting bigger, making me more balanced.  I'll post pics of the rest of the clothes another day.

I Had to Do It

-- -- --
This is how I responded to a lunch invitation for today. 

It was going to be at the same time as a yoga class I'm looking forward to, and I've done enough skipping workouts for eating events this month. 

I feel good about making my health a priority!

I'm leaving on Saturday to visit family in Oregon for xmas and my birthday.  Beginning to worry a bit about how I'm going to stay relatively under control.  Long walks are unlikely since this time of year is usually constant rain in Oregon.  My sister's development has a gym with an elliptical I can use, so there's an option.  I'll just need to tear myself away from the Baileys long enough to sweat it out! 

I'm going to keep entering the calories into MFP.  Everything that goes in my mouth => into MFP.  I'll try to slow down or stop when I hit 1500 net calories every day.  My goal is to maintain (finish the year at 224).

I've begun to think about what healthy and flavorful snacks I can use to keep me satisfied (and away from the cookies).  Here's what I have so far:
- Pastrami (a local deli makes grrreat pastrami.  I think I'm going to bring a pound with me). 70 calories for 2 ounces
- Wasabi almonds, preweighed into bags, 170 cals per ounce
- Hard boiled eggs, 70 cals per egg
- Dove dark chocolate miniatures, 40 cals per piece
That's probably enough - I'm only going to be gone for a week!

Up

226.2 this morning which is UP 2.6 from Saturday morning, in a steady increase every single day.  I'm getting pretty nervous, but my logical mind knows this is probably nothing to get nervous about.


It could be TOM. I have an IUD, so don't bleed.  But the other parts of TOM still visit.  Like the moods - ha! And the bloating.
It could be the calories - I ate more than 1200, but probably less than 1800 on Saturday and Monday. I had sushi yesterday - high cal, but oh, so yummy.  And yes, I did have a lot of calamari on Monday.  It's a special treat.
It could be the carbs I ate/drank over the last few days - I measured 1/2 cup of pasta shells yesterday, my first pasta in months and had it with ham and broccoli and I've had at least one beer 4 of the last 5 nights.
It could be a settling point.  The last time I was at 225 pounds in 2004, I couldn't get below it.

When I think about it logically, I can see that my world isn't ending.  I'm FAR away from instantly returning to 276 pounds.  I just need to not get too upset and maintain my consistency of actions that work.  My good habits that I've built up.

I worked out hard yesterday on the elliptical for 30 minutes.
I drank a ton of tea yesterday.
I meditated for 15 minutes.
I ate around 1400 calories

Today I'll do a Jillian DVD workout after work.  I have an appointment with the therapist.  I'll eat 1200-ish calories.

I gotta just put this together one day at a time.  Yesterday is done and tomorrow hasn't come yet.  The only thing I can change is what I do right now.  Every minute I can choose the good habits and I know TOM will go away and the calories and carbs will fall off also.

Day One

First day after the end of the CDCC.  Weighed myself at 225.2 this morning, 0.6 up from yesterday and up 1.6 from Saturday.  My lowest was on Saturday morning at 223.6.

I went to a party Saturday and had more food in one sitting than I've had in months, including 2 helpings of scalloped potatoes and 2 helpings of grilled salmon, and maybe 3 or 4 cookies.  And 2 beers.  I didn't eat much at all yesterday (~1000 cals).  This morning's weight gain is probably from Saturday's party.  Or maybe TOM.  I DID use one good technique at Saturday's party - I served myself on an appetizer plate instead of a dinner plate, so the plate looked loaded full with much less food on it.  Instead of inhaling the food, I tried to slow down and enjoy every wonderful, crumbly morsel.

I went to a party Friday night too, but all I had to eat there were cold cuts.  Nothing else looked good enough to make me want to waste calories.  I'm glad I saved the calories!  The damage from Saturday would have been much worse if I were trying to recover from 2 straight nights of gluttony.

But we have a work get together tonight, too.  I exercised at lunch to give myself a head start, and just finished a salad to fill myself up a bit.  I'm going to try to stick to safer options like shrimp or antipasto, but the fried calamari is going to be singing to me - and I won't be able to resist!

I didn't push myself very hard at today's workout.  I didn't want to get too sweaty and muss my hair.  That concerns me because I want to start pushing my physical boundaries more.  I mean today, I tried 3-4 halfway boy pushups (go down halfway-ish), then 8 full girl pushups, but then I stopped!  I tried an arm dip, but when I realized that I can't do it, I stopped trying.  Same with a chin-up.  Can't do it.  Didn't really try. 

I gotta stop giving myself a break on this stuff.  My body is going to change when I push it past it's comfort point.  I'm thinking about a class, like a boot camp or crossfit.  Or maybe I can share a trainer with some other people.  Or maybe I can find a challenge that has a more physical aspect, or set that as a goal in my next challenge.  I'm getting a little nervous that I don't have any challenges lined up for the New Year.  Oh Mir - any news on your next challenge?? 

I'm considering setting a 5K as my next fitness goal, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet.  Running isn't a goal right now.  When I lived in Washington DC, they had pickup field hockey games on the mall every week.  I love playing field hockey - and it's tough.  If I could find something like that and make a goal to be able to hang with the field hockey crowd in the spring - now that would be a goal I could get into.

CDCC Wrapup

It's pretty astounding.

Here's the pics from the start of the CDCC. I had a pair of Hilfiger pants and a velvet jacket that I wanted to fit into. I could zip the pants, but it was all very tight and I had a serious muffin top.

 

And today:

The muffin top is gone. The jacket fits well. The pants still look bad, but now they look bad because they're too big instead of too small.

I started the CDCC at 258 and weighed 224.4 this morning for a loss of ~34 pounds.  My CDCC goal was to get to 230-235 and I was successful!

I weaned myself off Diet Coke and started to drink a ton of black tea, as in ~20 teabags a week.

I started to read a book, but dumped it early and instead took an 8-week meditation class and started to see a therapist.  I explored the concept of taking care of myself and discovered that the most kind, caring and empathetic person in the world is right here, inside me.

I learned what real hunger feels like compared to the kind of hunger that comes after eating too much, and learned better ways to handle the fake hunger.  I stopped doing anything possible to avoid feeling hungry and actually skipped a meal here and there because eating wasn't the most important thing in the world.

I started to exercise regularly, something I haven't done in over 13 years.

I supported other bloggers and was helped tremendously when they supported me.

So that's it for the CDCC.  

I'm gonna keep going.  I've got 40 pounds to go, or maybe 55 depending on what my final goal is.  My goal for New Years is to weigh exactly the same as I weigh now. No gain over Xmas.  Then my goal for next year is to get rid of that 40 pounds and start to transition to a place where dieting and food aren't the most important things.

Thanks for letting me be a part of this!  I hope to continue in the 2012 challenge, or find another one to help me continue this journey.

Peace, all!

What This Has Meant

Tomorrow I'm going to write a just the facts post with pictures and numbers to close out the CDCC, but today I want to write about what it's meant.  I don't feel like the same person I was 6 months ago, physically or emotionally.  I am SO much healthier!  I don't know which came first, the invisible click in my psyche or finding Mir's blog at the beginning of September, but the CDCC has completely changed me.

My weight crept up over the course of the last 10 years, hand in hand with my self esteem going down.  It was so sneaky, I didn't realize it was happening.  I hid myself in loose clothes and wasn't surprised when I was invisible.  I read weight loss science blogs looking for the "secret" to losing weight, hoping that it meant I could still eat as much as I wanted and not move, and weight would melt off.

But hauling around 276 pounds was doing a number on my knees and I had plantar fasciitis terrible.  I realized that at 45, I couldn't wait for science to figure something out.  I had to own my problem.  Own my body.  Before it was too late.

So here I am now, at 223.6 pounds this morning.  I carry myself differently.  Yes, because there's 50+ pounds less of me, but also because I don't expect to be invisible any more.  And also because I've worked my body hard and it's better than it was.  People are reacting to what's changed in me, and I've got more and stronger relationships than before.  I can't say whether it's thinner me or more confident and moving better me, but I'd guess it's the latter.

I figured out what my non-negotiables are in a partner and put them in my profile up on match.com.  It's the more appearance-focused of the dating sites I've tried, and this time has gone very differently from the last time when I was 50 pounds heavier.  I must be putting out a stronger vibe because tomorrow I'm meeting a guy that's employed and can put together a few sentences who seems to want to meet me!  Two years ago I would have written, "Um, I'm overweight.  Are you sure you're OK with that?"  But now it doesn't define me.

So, um, yeah.  The CDCC has been big for me.  I'm a little nervous about what happens now and hope, hope, hoping that I get into Mir's next challenge.  I'm SO glad to have walked this path with you all and wish all of you the strength to continue on the path you've chosen.

Peace!

Fifty!

My highest weight was 276 in the summer of 2010.  This morning I weighed myself at 225.6.

I'm 50 pounds down.

It's been easy, really.  So far.  The first 12 pounds went over a year and the next 38 went in the last 3-1/2 months.  I haven't struggled, except with planning meals and exercise.  There have been no existential issues - "I don't know why the french fries keep ending up in my mouth."  None of that.  It's like after years of knowing what needed to be done and NOT doing it, years of knowing how to take care of myself and choosing not to, something inside me finally decided to choose to take care of myself.

I'm about halfway done.  To be not overweight, I'll lose another 56 pounds and be under 170.  I've written here that I'll probably settle at 185, which is the lowest weight I was able to maintain without difficulty (in 1997).  I can't get my head around losing over 100 pounds, so I'm just going to focus on the next 10 right now. 

I'm so glad you folks are doing this with me!  Let's keep going, shall we?

Monday, Sweet Monday

226.4 this morning.  I've lost 32 pounds on this challenge!

I decided last night that I was going to do Jillian 30DS this morning, so I put my workout clothes in the bed with me so they'd be warm when I woke up.  (I keep my bedroom at 55 degrees to save money on heating oil.) It was still tough to get out of bed, but I made it in time to do the video AND a 10-minute guided meditation on loving-kindness.  Level 1 is still a challenge, so I'm still doing it.  I like how the lunges and squats are tightening up my rear and I want to keep doing them.

As I was writing my breakfast trick yesterday, I thought that I'd like to write some of the other techniques/tricks that are working for me so far.

1.  If it's not going to be absolutely delicious, don't eat it.  I don't have enough calories available to waste on food that doesn't delight and satisfy me.  There's a Pinterest thing that rings true for me:  if you're not willing to eat vegetables then you're not really hungry.  If I'm restless and thinking that I want to eat, I'll wait until I can figure out exactly what I want instead of opening the fridge and trying thing after thing.  Sometimes that means, like yesterday, that I don't eat much in a day.  If I'm faced with something that I feel Meh about, I'll skip it or only have a little.  Like Saturday after drill - we cooked burgers and there was a turkey burger for me.  But it was awful!  I tried a few bites and then threw it away and had an angus burger along with the other guys.  I enjoyed every bite of that angus burger.

2. Savor every bite.  I learned about mindful eating in meditation class.  It's looking at your food, smelling it, experiencing it with all your senses.  Appreciating the work that it took to get the food to your fork, thinking about the chicken or the cow, etc, and all the steps between there and you.  If it's a vegetable or green, think about the sun on it as it was growing and the energy of the sun going into you.  Then touch the food with your tongue and feel it, letting a little into your mouth.  Then use all your senses to appreciate the feel and taste of the food as you chew and swallow.  It's slow and inconvenient, but that's the point.

3. Take a little bit.  For brownies and other things that I love, I'll cut a piece in half and then half again, so I have a very small piece on the end of my fork.  I'll savor the heck out of that tiny bite, and ask myself if that was sufficient.  It doesn't work for things that don't have a big, rich flavor like fudge fancy sugar cookies.  I do it for pizza, but always end up eating the whole piece anyway, and more.

4.  Weigh every day.  I do it in the morning first thing after I get up and pee.  Sometimes I weigh in the evening as well.  There's usually about a 2-pound gain through the day.

5. Push breakfast as late as possible.  I wrote about this yesterday.

6. Log everything I eat.  I do this mostly.  I give myself a free pass on most vegetables, but if I use butter, I'll log that.  I was religious about this for 3 months, and now that I know the calories of most of the things I eat, I'll guess at my daily intake.  Whenever I'm faced with something that I don't know the calories for, I'll look it up.  There's an MFP app for my phone, so it's with me everywhere.  There's no excuse not to know the calories in what I eat.

7. Weigh, weigh, measure and weigh.  I weigh meat and cheese because those are things where portion sizes are going to creep up if I don't stay on top of it.  I measure all starches.

8. Work on the emotional aspect.  For me, it wasn't as simple as eating to stuff emotions.  Being thinner isn't going to magically make me like myself.  If I don't change my head, an emotional upset will mean 50+ pounds back on unless I work on my emotional balance at the same time as I lose weight.  So I am.  I need to feel that I have value simply because I'm me, which isn't true now.  I feel like I have to be very accomplished and be perfect and then, only then, maybe ... people will like me.  I've given this one to a therapist and it feels like the right thing to do.  Last night I listened to a guided meditation on loss and healing and bawled through most of it, snot running down my face, starting when I heard, "Imagine a person coming toward you with kind eyes and this person says, 'I'm here.  I'm with you as long as you need me.'"  Hm.  The therapist says I have some grief work to do.  Maybe she's right.

9. Thirty minutes of activity most days.  I'm not rigorous about what the activity will be, but I can't make a huge time commitment for exercise.  I am not interested (yet) in pushing myself to my limits, so I sweat, but don't push myself until I burn. Sometimes it's 20-25 minutes on the elliptical, some days it's free weights and the weight machines at my work gym, sometimes it's a DVD.  I have to plan it or else it won't happen.  This weekend I didn't plan any workouts, and didn't realize until Sunday afternoon that I hadn't done any.  If/when I hit a plateau, I'll have to push myself harder on this.  I can feel the muscles forming, so there's improvement.  They're covered in fat though.  I still can't feel my hips when I'm laying down.  But I can see indentations on the sides of my belly!

10. Get back on the horse immediately.  Since this is how I'm eating for the rest of my life, there is no ON a diet or OFF a diet.  If I slip, I do not give myself permission to slip more.  When normal people eat too much, they naturally eat less for a while.  I want to be normal that way.  I think that's why I ate hardly anything yesterday after last week's orgy of food.  Yes, I'll ramp the calories up at some point, but per my scale, it will be maybe 1600 per day - forever.

What I'm working on but not doing so great at:

1. Letting go a little.  I feel like I have to keep everything under ironclad control or I'm going to magically, instantly balloon back up to 276 pounds.

2. Seeing myself the way I truly am.  When I look in the mirror, I see someone who isn't overweight.  Thanks to a suggestion from Mir, I've started taking pictures of myself to see what I really look like.

3. Letting myself be me instead of trying to be perfect all the time.  Nuff said.

OK y'all - have a great day!

CDCC Update

Here's the penultimate CDCC update!  227.0 this morning for a loss of 3.2 last week.  I've been up and down all month (see the rollercoaster in the picture), but I'm 10 pounds down from a month ago, so the progress continues.   [AND ... 30+ pounds down from the start of this challenge, and 49 pounds lower than my highest weight of 276.]  Yay us!

I had a small NSV this morning. But first a little background.

One of the techniques that's worked really well for me is to push breakfast as late as possible.  I'm a HUGE fan of breakfast - and breakfast has to have eggs in it.  A day without eggs is like a day without air.  Breakfast used to be 3 eggs, 3 pieces of bacon and some cheese.  Or maybe I would make open faced egg sandwiches, for a 700 calorie breakfast, easy. Then I'd struggle to make it to lunch without snacking.

One of the things I realized is that I was the same amount of hungry at 10am no matter what I ate for breakfast.  I also noticed that at 7am I wasn't especially hungry.  I was eating because I thought I had to have breakfast at home before I went to work.

So I started scrambling my eggs at home and bringing them to work with me and eating when I got hungry, which is usually between 9 and 10.  Now I don't need that fudge fancy cookie I used to buy every day at 10 and I can be smarter about my lunch choices because I'm not starving.  Win-win-win.

During the week, my egg scramble is eggs, onions, green peppers and sometimes an ounce or two of ham or pastrami or a little salsa.  On the weekend I'll cut back to 2 eggs and add a slice of cheese, or a piece of bread or a tortilla.  It's so filling that I don't need to eat again until mid afternoon.

This morning's NSV?  I got up, went to the grocery store for tea and green peppers, came home and started making breakfast.  And then realized that I wasn't hungry.  And then realized that I could turn off the stove and eat later.  So I went back to bed and read blogs and cruised Pinterest until my stomach started growling.

It's a victory to listen to my body like that. 

Before, the only signals I got were hunger.  And it was emotional hunger, not physical hunger, so I didn't trust my body's signals. I'm surprised and amazed that I can at least occasionally trust what my body is telling me.

This picture is what we do every Saturday at the end of fire drill.  We go to the local old folks home and take blood pressures and write them in booklets.  The one on the right is the one I'm crushing on.  Me and my therapist are working on why I've got a crush on someone who can't make me happy (like, is it related to parent issues, my childhood, or what).  But hey, that's why it's called a crush and not true love.  (And yes, I've been able to get back into normal conversations with him, when I stop being all bashful and hoping he likes me back. He likes me just fine ... as a fellow firefighter.)

I wanna write stuff about how important this challenge and all you bloggy buddies have been in getting me started and keeping me going on my weight loss.  It's been everything!  But this post is already long, so I'll save it for later this week.

Saturday

I have been incredibly busy this week, with work and evening activities every day.  I mostly composed a few detailed, thinky blog posts, but I'm not sure if I ever posted them.  This one is going to be just the facts.  I'll post the CDCC update tomorrow.

226.8 this morning.  I've been up and down all week around 229-230.  Today it's down.
Exercise: something different every day this week; Jillian shred, C25K W1, short pilates video, elliptical and weight lifting
Eating: not great.  So many eating events this week.  Pizza and wings were involved multiple times. I ate the same thing everyone else was eating, but didn't pig out thanks to my small(er) stomach getting full quickly.  I also didn't track as well this week.
Support: minimal. I read everyone's, but only commented on three this week.  If I get into Mir's next challenge (please, please, please!), I'll do better at this one.
Water:  I've been drinking lots and lots of black tea. 

I want to take some down time tonight to rest.  The girls are planning on going dancing, which I know is great exercise and I haven't done for years.  But I just don't feel like it right now.  I'd rather have one night of quiet, at home.  We'll see.  I have to run out to fire drill now.  We had 3 calls last night, so it's been run, run, run.

Have a good day, all!

I'm Glad You're Here

Moving to South Carolina in 2000 was the umpteenth time I've started over in my life (and I've started over umpteen times since then).  I had to find my way around the new area and my new job, meet new people ... and make new friends.  All this was on top of learning a new way of talking and being ... the Southern Way.  I was SO underwater, it wasn't funny.

I was pretty lucky there.  The daughter of a coworker was single and liked to hang out, and she sort of "adopted" me.  I remember one particular time as she picked me up to go see a band play at a local bar.  I got in the car and she said, "I'm glad you're here."  It was such a simple phrase, but wow, it made me feel great.  That was 10 years ago and I still remember feeling warm and fuzzy inside, feeling part of something.  At least a beginning friendship.

I thought about it again last night because I'd just finished texting something to the Chief of the Fire Department,  "I'm glad I worked for you."

We had elections last night and he was voted out.  It was emotional and it was a surprise to those of us who'd worked very hard this year.  The young faction was voted out and the old faction was voted back in.  This means I probably won't see the chief very much or the other people I've grown attached to over the last few months.  I'm upset about it, and worried too.  But I have to see it for what it is.  Attachment.

non-Attachment is one of the things we learn about in meditation class, along with acceptance and nonjudging, nonstriving and letting go, patience, trust and a beginner's mind.

Yes, I liked the outgoing chief and other folks who lost.  But it's OK.  Things will turn out exactly the way they should, and all attachment does is give me pain.  Yes, I'm sad.  But that's OK too.  I can feel what I feel and then accept those feelings and let them float away.

I hope when I texted him last night that I gave him a little bit of the warmth that the phrase gave me ten years ago.
--- --- ---
So - um - I wrote that I was going to have a salad yesterday for dinner.  But the elections went until 10pm and they brought in pizza and wings and I had a piece of pizza and 4 wings.  Not salad.  The scale showed a loss of 1 pound this morning.

Then today I was on my way out the door to the gym and someone said, "Let's get Thai food,"  and I said, "Sure."  Tonight is girls night at the bar, so I'm going to have at least 2 beers.  Maybe more. 

I'll try to hit the gym on my way out from work, but one saying I like fits here: "Do or not do.  There is no try." 

I'll DO it.

Not Perfect

I just don't feel like being perfect today. 

I had a GREAT workout yesterday.  I did some exercises that left me trembling and me feeling my core all afternoon.  It was wonderful to feel my muscles getting stronger and I could feel myself moving differently, like I wanted everyone to see how ripped I'm getting.  That might be why I had such a great fire drill last night.  I got to drive a truck and operate the pump, and talked to a few folks that I don't normally get a chance to interact with.  I felt SO good, I'm sure my confidence shone through.  (It doesn't hurt that the asshole who gave me so much grief the other month got suspended for giving someone else grief!  A third party told me he wanted to quit after being suspended.  Me = not heartbroken about that.)

I have vacation days to use up, so I took the day off today.  I had a 400-500 calorie breakfast and then didn't think about eating until I was at a yarn shop at 3 - and there was a pizza shop next door.  So I stopped in and had a piece.  Now I'm sitting by the fireplace blogging, with a glass of hard cider next to me.  The only crime is that the pizza wasn't delish.  (Hate to waste calories on anything that isn't heavenly!)  I'll have something healthy to eat when I get hungry later, like mixed greens salad.

When I went below 230 pounds, MFP helpfully recalculated my calorie requirement and now I only get 1200.  I have a problem with that. 

I wasn't so bothered with 1240, but 1200 feels not-doable without starving.  I may force MFP back up to 1300 so I don't feel so stifled, even though the difference is only 100 calories.  If the weight loss slows down, that's not the end of the world. 

On the one hand I want to lose as fast as possible so I can get on with my life.  But on the other hand, this IS the rest of my life.  I put my life on hold for WAY too many years.

I used the body fat thing on my scale this morning.  229.4 pounds, same as yesterday, 40.6% body fat. My scale says my BMR is 1867 calories per day (or my calorie requirements or whatever.  I got the scale in Holland, so the words are in Dutch.)  I think that means 1300 calories per day = 500 calorie deficit per day = 1 pound loss per week.

I'm having no luck turning 15 girl pushups into even ONE guy pushup.  My upper body is not that strong yet.  I tried a pullup and a chinup yesterday.  Can't do those either.

And lastly - I haven't heard from TaxMan since our conversation a week ago.  Guess that was it with him.  I'm not heartbroken about that either.  I deserve to be the center of someone's world, not an occasional dinner date.  The more I think about it, the angrier I get, which isn't a good sign.  It's probably a good time to stop thinking about it!

Monday Update

229.4 this morning, showing that the higher weight yesterday was probably closer to my true weight.  I didn't work out yesterday other than messing around with weights and the ball while watching TV right before bed.  At lunch today I'm going to go to the gym and do weight stuff, and do the exercise bike a bit. 

Here's a quote from Weighty Matters that I like a lot.  He's talking about New Year's Resolutions, and says pick ones that you like:
Weight wise, the more weight you want to permanently lose, the more of your lifestyle you're going to have to permanently change. Trying to adopt changes you don't like is a sure fire way to ensure that they're not going to be permanent.

So this year, resolve to like them. Analyze each and every resolution through the lens of, "Can I keep happily keep living this way"? Because if you can't do it happily, you're probably not going to keep doing it.

I love this guy!  He makes so much sense!

I've been keeping my measurements on a piece of paper and in FitDay, because MFP doesn't have the detail I like.  But I'm worried that I'll lose them.  So here are my measurements (the number in parenthesis is inches lost from the beginning).

9/3/2011 start
Waist  42.5
Neck  15.5
Bicep  15
Forearm  12
Chest  38
Hips  54
Thigh  30.5
Calf  19

10/7/2011
Waist  38.75 (-3.75)
Neck  14.5 (-1)
Bicep  15
Forearm  12
Chest  37 (-1)
Hips  52 (-2)
Thigh  28.25 (-2.25)
Calf 

11/15/2011
Waist  37 (-5.5)
Neck  14 (-1.5)
Bicep  14 (-1)
Forearm  12
Chest  36.5 (-1.5)
Hips  50.5 (-3.5)
Thigh  28.5 (-2)
Calf  18.25 (-.75)

I'm feeling a little bit of a letdown because I'm not going to hit another big milestone by the end of the CDCC or the end of the year.  I'm focused on getting below 200 which will take MONTHS.  I need to back off and think about hitting 225, then 220, then 215, etc, etc. in small steps.  Even though nobody has said anything, I've noticed guys at the firehouse being a little nicer to me, and I imagine that it's because I'm looking healthier and more fit (and acting more confidently as a result).  I can't wait until I'm at my goal and I look really good.  It feels a little like I'm in limbo now, while my body is changing.  Logically I know that's not true, that my life is happening every day and every day is an opportunity to live in the moment, but it still feels like my world is on Pause.

I need to keep remembering that this is a good time for me! And enjoy every minute of it!  Oh well - off to work out. 

Ta - girls!

CDCC Update

I've started two other posts in the last few days that never ended up getting posted, so the CDCC update will force me to finish and post.  It's not that I'm doing badly and not blogging because I don't want to post bad news.  It's that I'm thinking through something that I want to post and I keep on getting stuck.  I write the first part, take a break to think through more of it, and then don't make it back to the laptop.

First, the update: I woke up, peed and weighed myself at 227.2, which is crazy.  Much lower than I expected.  Then I got back in bed, read a bit, had a cup of tea and weighed again at 230.2, which is higher than I expected.  I'll take the high number for this week's update and set myself up (I hope) for a nice loss next week.  Last week I had T-Day weight on and was 231.8.  I lost 1.6 pounds this week. (Note: I put the 227.2 into MFP as my weight because I love looking at that "36 pounds lost"!)

Exercise:  I did every day except Wednesday, either Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred workout 1 or 20-ish minutes on the elliptical.

Support:  yes, I got to many, but not all.
Read: I changed this one to meditation and therapy and yes, I did it.
Water:  Lots and lots of tea.

The weight lifting and upper body work are helping my shoulders fill out to balance the lower body.  For contrast, here is a shot from 2008 when I was in Egypt that's a little embarrassing for how outsize my tush is. Yet again, the pictures show something completely different than I see myself.  I think I'm thinner than I really am.

The dress is still a little too tight to comfortably sit and spend an evening.  There won't be much change before the end of the CDCC.  The event I may wear it to is in January, so I think I have 6 weeks to get my belly tighter and have the dress resting at my shoulders, breasts and hips, but not my belly.

OK:  the topic I've been struggling with this week.  What are my non-negotiables in a partner.  One of the reasons I struggle is that I HAD a short list when I met my ex-husband.  It was: Must be smart and able to work with his hands.  After about 7 years with him, I realized that I'd missed some important things, like - must make me feel valued and must be curious/interested in me and my life and what I think and how I feel.  Must want to spend time with me, share things I like to do with me, and be willing to go out of his way to put me first sometimes.  Must be emotionally available.  Must be more happy than unhappy.

I realized that "must be able to work with his hands" is negotiable.  "Must be smart," is not negotiable.

Here's a stab at a list of what I must have: (It's sad that so many of these are hard lessons from people I've dated in the last few years!)
First, basic things like, must not be married or already in a relationship.  If only separated, be past the drama and the hurt of the last relationship and have constructively learned from it.
Be emotionally available.  I don't want a relationship that's all dinner and sex and nothing else.
Be healthy enough to share physical activity with me.  All kinds.
Be interested in physical activity with me.  All kinds....  Lots of it.

Be a person that says YES more than NO.  He doesn't have to be absurdly happy, but my positivity can't withstand someone who is dragging me down all the time.
Make me feel valued, wanted and cared for.
Be smart.  Be a listener and a talker.  Be able to communicate effectively.
Be intellectually curious and/or creative.  Constantly sitting in front of the TV is not an option with me.
Be self-confident ... enough (I think lack of this is what's holding me back right now)

OK.  That's it.  All the other stuff like height, weight, college, income, career, looks - are all negotiable.  Whew - that was tough.

Off

The water weight, or whatever it was went away in a rush overnight, 2 pounds of it.  Back down to 230.0.  I was here on Thanksgiving morning, so it took a week to get it back off.  I won't make 220 by the end of the CDCC challenge, but I think 225 is do-able.  I've beaten my CDCC goal of 235-230, so I'm satisfied with the progress.

It's funny how after several days of eating on plan but no loss, weight always seems to disappear after one night of off-plan eating with more calories (and beer!).  Maybe that's the part where my body learns that it's not starving.  I'm glad for that because it means that it's OK, maybe even good to shake it up and not be too, too consistent with eating.

I've started a long-ish post thinking out loud about what my non-negotiables are in a man (in response to something Princess Dieter wrote a while ago).  But I got busy at work and something else happened today that I'd rather mention.  So I'll save that other one for later.

I SO envy you girls that are full of confidence and can approach a guy directly, or return the gaze full-on when a guy looks at you! I wish I could do that.

I went to the grocery store today to get some mesclun for a lunch salad and some apples.  I walked into the fruit section and saw a guy there wearing a firefighter sweatshirt for another department in the area.  A normal person would have waved and said Hey.  But I? Not I.  I studied the apples very carefully.  I was wearing my jacket with firefighter stuff on it.  He came and stood at the other end of the apples, but didn't say anything, and I didn't say anything.  And that was it.  Grr!  Why do I get all shy and introverted like that?  I have to make a split-second decision to be outgoing or not, and for me, it's usually NOT, unless I've had time to mentally prepare.

I've got an appointment with the therapist tomorrow and I want to talk to her about this stuff, starting with the guy I'm crushing on.  I went out with the girls last night and had a great time!  We talked about guys and stuff and guys and stuff and laughed a lot.  I told them about TaxMan and a tiny bit about crushee, and heard a few of their guy things.  I SO missed having that support group around, and this group is still new.  But it's looking good!  I'll eventually get around to telling them how tongue-tied I get, and they can give me the smack on the head to help me get over it.  The same smack that some of you have been giving me in writing!

Sigh.  As usual, losing weight ends up being the SMALLEST part of what needs to change.  So many other patterns in the way we interact with people also need to evolve.  Things that are hidden when weight is the big problem come show their ugly selves when the weight falls away.  I didn't have low self esteem because I was fat.  I have low self esteem, period.  It makes me nervous and tense for a whole different set of reasons than my nervousness and tensness when I was fat. (Cool how I snuck in that past tense, huh?).  It makes the support system so much more important and means that I should be spending at least as much time on the other stuff as I do on losing weight.