ate, drank, was merry

over the past few days, i've ordered pizza just because, grazed for three hours while chatting with family, enjoyed second helpings of stuffing with sausage-- and no helpings of turkey and cranberry chutney-- eaten two slices of pie in front of people, ordered fries while my companion had cole slaw, and generally enjoyed the holiday's food offerings.

and i'm back.

i'm not willing to enjoy the present at the expense of the future anymore. so i'm doing a little experiment.

i've suspected for a while that, had i gone off on my ACTUAL own after college, i would have lost the weight. because i would have been in a position to totally control my food environment and not worry about anyone else's schedule. instead i got married. so, for the next few months, sunday-friday, i will pretend i'm not married. i will cook on the weekends for my husband, but i will workout while he eats. my dinner will be a very low-cal meal after my workout (and a larabar at work beforehand).

i hope to wrap this up on march 1 at 140 pounds, in the habit of working out daily (arms, abs and cardio) and able to run for 30 minutes.

so. that's 13 weeks. and it runs right through christmas, new year's and valentine's day. (and right up to my 26th birthday. EEP.) i don't know for official yeat, but according to today's weight, it's 29 pounds. over 2 pounds a week (i will settle for 145 and all the other goals). BUT, let's be honest, after a couple days low on white carbs and salt, i may well be looking at a 5 pound week.

december's goals are:

1. -12 pounds (by the first january weigh in)
2. 30 minutes cardio 5 to 7 days a week (video, bike, stepper, walk)
3. ab work 4-6 days a week

and that's that. thinks i expect to be eating the most of are:

• bean & veg soups
• egg whites & low-cal bread
• fruits
• veggies
• salads with low-fat cheese
• lara bars

i am getting this DONE. this is make-or-break, shit-or-get-off-the-pot, all-or-nothing time. and i choose to make shit and all. er. something less gross.

the next three months-- the traditional months of selflessness and giving-- are all the fuck about me.

(no, i'm not going to skip the MASSIVE baking plans i have. i'm just going to be really brave.)

i'm looking forward to a possible visit to nyc in march (OR, omfg, to ITALY since the same weekend is showing PHENOMENAL rates to rome!), hearing back from grad school around that time, my husband's stepsister's wedding in may (and looking totally HOT so people who haven't seen me since MY wedding will think my husband and i broke up!) and... turning 26 in the body i've always wanted. and a size 8 dress.

on a break

back monday the 30th with... i dunno? bells on? and gusto. and maybe a new plan. one that involves giving this until march and losing (yes, actually LOSING) 30 more pounds.

maybe.

6 weeks

6 weeks from today, it will be 2010. where did 2009 go? or, for that matter, 2007 and 2008? geez.

my husband says we're going to get back to our workout routine (sit-ups and push-ups 3 days a week) from the beginning of the year. on monday. i'd rather start today, but four days is actually a very short precognition period for him. normally he needs weeks to acclimate himself to change-- more if he's going to have to physically DO something.

i'm still seriously considering going to a much trimmed-down routine for the food season... i'm sort of adrift right now. i hate it. i want my recumbent bike fixed. i want to lose 22 pounds, at least. i want to feel young before i get old.

are you sitting down?

i didn't work out. I KNOW, you're shocked. me, too.

i DID eat pizza and cupcakes and magical pepperoni dip.

i'm so disappointed in myself. and embarrassed. ugh. i'm drowning, here. i don't want to settle. i realized this yesterday, i don't want to accept 80 pounds down as good enough. 156 pounds isn't even in the "healthy" bmi range... not that that's totally accurate, but i have a pretty medium frame and am not very muscular, so, ya know, it might apply to me. and i know that it's not a weight where i'd wear a bikini... or a miniskirt... or a backless top or whatever fabulous thing i imagine my skinny self FINALLY, triumphantly wearing. i know (from experience, remember i was about 155 in 2003ish) that my arms will still be floppy and my legs will lack definition.

i don't want that.

i want to be slim and strong. i want to be delicate and girly. i want to be comfortable. and i want to have lost my 101 pounds. i DO.

now. how the fuck do i make it happen? i mean, MAKE IT. how do i succeed? losing 32ish pounds is no small task. but i need it. i need success. what do i do?

balls!

i was just thinking how i don't have anything, really, to do tonight. i sent my essay (second draft!) off to my editor friend last night and finished my class. i have nothing to bake, nothing to study, nothing to do after my grandmother-in-law's birthday dinner which, she's 78, it'll be over early.

and then i thought...

motherfuck! i didn't workout last night! (i went to class, made cupcakes and revised my essay, though.) and i didn't workout this morning! (... i have no excuse, really.) i SO DO have something to do tonight: work. the. fuck. out.

i have been really off lately, with THE FOODZ. i haven't even eaten a LOT, per se, just really poor choices. not the best by any means. like, oreos for breakfast AGAIN. fried rice for lunch. a cookie and a cupcake for dinner. bad idea.

i bought a million cherry pie lara bars last night, and am wondering... what if i ate, say, egg whites for breakfast, a salad for lunch and a lara bar for dinner, like, until christmas? NIGHT FOOD is what kills me. it just kills me dead. see above: a cookie and a cupcake for dinner. so, supposin' i just eliminated the problem? i could make nice dinners for my husband on the weekend, casseroles and such that he can eat all week, and just eat lara bars. with the holidays approaching, i know i'm going to be stressed and pretty much trapped in my kitchen FOREVER, so what if i just... simplify?

(in which i psycho-analyze myself)

what. the. living. fuck.

why don't i follow through? i'm REALLY GOOD at planning, but whyyyyyyy don't i follow throuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh?

because i suck?

because i'm lazy?

because i LOVE food?

yes.

and because i'm afraid of being done?

eh. i dunno. isn't it odd that after being told that the last ten pounds are the hardest i decided that i only have 10 pounds (more or less) to go? it's like a got a get-out-of-trying-free card. which... GOD. just TRY. i mean, how long will it be before settling for a 10/12 because settling for a loose 14? and then will i realize that my 14s would fit if i just gained ten pounds? and then... what? another 50 to get into my wedding dress again?

to get up so speed i need to do 25 minutes on the stepper and 25 sit-ups tonight or tomorrow morning. i can jump back on the moving train, right? that's a good idea?

166.8... 5.8 pounds and i can post a -75 picture. won't that be fun?

can i quit now?

exercise? FAIL.

eating plan? FAIL.

grad school essay? FAIL.

it's been an awesome weekend full of... of... food, naturally. brunch. dinner. vanilla cake with peanut butter filling and chocolate ganach. booze. good god. i'm up, but why did we move weigh-in from monday to tuesday, anyway? for the patented TUESDAY DROP. so, um, we'll see. i'm dying to wear 12s (i'm at that place where i can't really dress up my jeans cause they're loose) and mediums (so i can go shopping in my closet!).

i'm tired.

40 days (and forty nights, if we're being specific)

a pound every four days. one and three-quarters pound a week. starting... NOW. seriously, 166.0. not 1/5th of a pound fluctuation all week?? whatev.

it has been a tough week. the end-point of 150-156 is looking more and more unlikely. and it wasn't an unreasonable goal. i didn't work out last night OR this morning and i feel awful about it. i need to pick up and dust off, like, for real for real. i've made peace with the shitstorm and i really want inner peace to = outer beauty. (okay! okay! THINNESS. i want it to mean THINNESS.)

of course, i am, at this very moment, eating oreos. that does seem counter-productive...

i made a get-in-real-shape-really plan for NEXT year (what? you think i can abandon my physical fitness and not get really fat again. side note: when will i not think i'm fat? ever??). now i just have to meet my weight/size goal-- and yes, i do think i'll go down another size when i'm all buff and shit-- because OHMYGOD i need to be DOOOOOOOONE. and i know i won't be able to walk away unless i made it.

two weeks to thanksgiving. i want to see 165 next week (or 164) and then i'm going to do a little pulse of seriously-don't-fuck-up and try for 160 for the food-centric holiday.

... and back again

recommend-er didn't respond to my email... probably nothing.

sister continues to inject misery and drama into my life.

too sore (and, okay, hungover) to work out this morning, will do tonight & tomorrow morning.

166.0...

you know how they say everything can change in an instant?

i feel like that today.

yesterday i was sitting here, felling crummy about not having worked out. annoyed that my sister had opened the christmas dinner evite but not rsvp'd. freaking the fuck out about where i would get a second letter of recommendation for grad school.

today, i am feeling really successful because i worked out last night and... this morning. i've received an email from my sister reaching out to me for the first time in three years. i have an enthusiastic instructor very willing to recommend me.

funny thing? i still weigh exactly 166.0*. i feel a lot lighter.

16 pounds in 42 days is improbable, i know, but i'm shooting. if i don't make 16, i know i'll make 10 and i'll be in damn good shape.


*nearly 40% of my in-range calories yesterday were, ah, celebratory. that is, chocolate and wine. hmmmm... why didn't i lose weight??

a comedy of mistakes

(or why it would be REALLY BAD were domingo NOT a fictional character from a fictional book by a fictional author/historian.)

uuuuhh, yeah. are we clear?

so... wha' had happened wuz...

i had a meeting with my boss to discuss how my health insurance isn't meeting my needs. it's provided by the company free of charge to me and money is tiiiiiiiiiiiiight so i can't go onto my husband's (taken out of his pay pre-tax) insurance without getting a raise to match it. $1.93 p/h to be precise. i also had to ask him to write me a recommendation for grad school. a REALLY GLOWING one. (spoiler: he said yes and was a little flattered that i asked.)

mistake #1: i get really fucking nervous asking people for things and i stutter and sweat and it's bad. so i took a xanax. it worked! i was cool as a cucumber at 3pm when we met and i got everything i asked for. (although, really, $1.93 an hour? wouldn't a normal person be like, eh, let's make it $2 even-- after two years without a raise?)

so, we got home and, like i said yesterday, we'd had some folks over on saturday. the two lovely women brought us lovely hostess-gifty bottles of wine, one of which (a riesling) was opened by the very drunk mate of said gifting lady. he drank one glass before switching back to beer, then to sweet tea vodka, then back to beer again. (i can't even think about that.)

mistake #2: i enjoy a glass of white, so i had one while a made dinner. at about 5:30, not three hours after 1mg of xanax.

during dinner, we often watch the daily show from the previous night on hulu. since there's no show on sunday night, there was none to watch, but our netflix had arrived...

mistake #3: transsiberian.

i fell the fuck asleep because oh.my.god. boring. i slept (drugged, okay, let's face it) like a baby until 11, got up to pee and brush my teeth and slept like a baby until 6:55. yes, i DO feel great today. VERY well-rested.

and i have an alarm set for 7pm*. there's 43 days until my move-on date. by the time i move on (to getting majorly fit) i want to be able to do 50 sit-ups and an hour of cardio. in order to do that, i'm starting today with 15 minutes of cardio and 20 sit-ups. i'll add a minute every day and 5 sit-ups every week.

sorry, domingo. but at least the man in black DID reach the top of the cliffs of insanity alive, right?

oh, and, hey, i still hit 166.0 which is kinda a big, important deal. i've lost 70 pounds. not bad, eh? well, let me just say, that pretty number from last week-- and next week!-- it was BETTER.


*edited to add: uh, DUR, becklette. when that 7pm alarm goes off in the DEAD MIDDLE of your starting a fundraising program class tonight, it will not improve you odds of getting a reccommendation letter from the instructor. let's make that 8:45, shall we?

aftermath

it's not parties at my home that cause problems, it's the aftermath. you know: THE LEFTOVERS.

we had five of my husband's friends over on saturday for an exciting arrangement of beer, plus a magical grilled cheese with bacon, onions and apple and black bean quesadillas, two-bite brownies and pumpkin tarts. i will admit that i maybe didn't NEED the four pumpkin tarts (the little dudes were about an inch and a half in diameter) but i was otherwise fairly composed. i nursed a liter of seltzer while everyone munched on chips and dip and drank the first two beers (or five). when i DID have beers, i had one leftover harvest moon (NOM) and one of the lowest abv pale ales that were bought in case our female guests didn't want to drink with the big boys (they totally did-- rock on girls!). i ate just one of each sandwich-- that's about 4x4 for the grilled cheese and 1/2 an 8" tortilla.

i did good. for breakfast (you knew that had to stay over, right? did i mention 6 to 12% abv? times FIVE?) i made scrambled eggs and frozen hash browns. i had a serving of eggs and one hash brown. and then? i'd say it went downhill.

leftover tortilla chips with flax? oooooh, i NEED fiber, i've been ooogey lately.

leftover pumpkin tarts and brownies? best to get them out of the house.

leftover cinnamon sugar pita chips? deadly.

the cinnamon pudding i forgot to ever serve? left me help you with that, honey.

popcorn and reece's pieces at the movies? nom nom nom. (ps-- paranormal activity is SO NOT the "scariest movie... ever.")

1/4 pound of angel hair with butter and cheese? well, okay, that was dinner. and it was whole-wheaty or something.

obvs, i'm up a little today. but i'm cracking down in the hopes that that pretty number i'd seen on wednesday, thursday and friday will come back. i would really like to show it to you. in other news... wtf is my problem?? why can't i make myself workout?? i'm DOING IT today. not this morning, since we slept late, but i will do it when i get home. i swear on the soul of my father, domingo montoya, i will use my mini-stepper tonight and finish 15 minutes alive!*

so, yeah. maybe i'll drag that little sucker into the kitchen and do it while i make risotto for supper. or maybe right after. the outer apartment (non-bed rooms) is immaculate, so i really have no excuse not to work out. or outline my grad school application essay.

*am nerd.

puttin' on the fritz

my scale is on the fritz again. i hate my scale. except when it tells me i'm 150.8. which i'm totally not. i think. i hope, actually, because the pair of 12s i'm wearing right now are awfully snug-- i've got a rubber band looped thorough the buttonhole-- and at 150ish i expect to be a 10!

sooooooo. okay. i haven't had a full night's sleep since last thursday. after being sick for days and having to get up to re-dose in the middle of the night, and then our lovely encounter with the yankees fan next door, last night we had to call the police on our neighbors down the hall at one am. once the cops were there, we got the impression it was an argument between parents and a teenaged girl, but before they got there i thought it was a break-up gone horribly, horribly wrong. i mean, this girl was screaming bloody murder, wailing and crying and trying pretty desperately to get out of the apartment. she was saying things like don't touch me, stay away from me and i gave you everything. we're having a few friends over tomorrow and to be honest, i'd love to cancel. it's not the friends that are a problem, it's everything else i have to do: clean, cook, take out months worth of recyclables. i'm just tired.

ugh

my cold has declined to the point of, you know, cold-like instead of DEATHFLU, which is cool, only as of yesterday my guts are... unhappy. i don't know what's going on, but i'd like to feel better now.

my pretty number remains and as i lay in bed yesterday i realized that we had trader joe's chewey molasses cookies in the apartment and i'd only eaten one all day. i won't lie, i considered getting up and having one, but knowing i'd have to leave my warm bed and my sleep-fog to do it wasn't appealing. and i'm glad, because if i'd gotten up and woken up, i wouldn't have gotten the lovely hour of sleep before we found out that our neighbor is a yankees fan.

my pretty number is still around. i do sort of wonder why i bother with the daily weighing and the 2/10ths of a pound accuracy when i just drop a pound or two over night and then sit there for days.

frustrated with my pants situation (i've officially crossed into that awful middle ground where one size is too big but the next is too small) i dragged out six pairs of jeans from high school/college. one pretty much fit, but they are my designated painting jeans from theatre crafts lab (and practicum) in college, well-worn and soft but also covered in paint and, i discovered last night, have a small hole right under my left cheek. one kinda fit, but, w0w, i was pretty sure low-rise flared jeans were never going out of style, wasn't i? we're on a long-term spending freeze to get out of the debt i don't like (everything but my student loans) by the time i go back to school in a year, so i'm going to have to hold out to christmas for new clothes.

unless i need size TEN jeans.

okay, enough disjointedness.

shhhhhhhh...

(omfg, i saw a pretty pretty number, it needs to stick around until tuesday.)

so... who is this person i keep seeing in the mirror?

granted, i've been sick, and that always messes with my perception of myself. but my hair has gone all blah and my boobs are drooping-- yes, my 25 year old boobs!-- and i'm all soft and squishy and... dude, are my pants too big? cause my sweater definitely is.

i'm calling a halt to this whole losing-weight thing in a couple months, but my personal care needs some work. FIRST OF ALL i need to get in shape, hardcore. so as not to be squishy. by the end of this week i'm going to have to actually get up 20 minutes early (20. minutes.) to start on a little workout program. i'm going to start at 12 minutes on the stepper and 15 sit-ups a day and add 1 minute every day and 5 sit-ups every week until the end of the year. only thing is, i gotta start by the end of the week in order to reach nice, round numbers at the end of the year. and next year will be the year of fitness.

another thing, what should i do with this blog when i don't want to be hung up on the almighty SCALE anymore? i've been thinking of taking on a new blog under my real name and stuff. would you guys (if there are any of you left) come with me? please weigh in. (HA!)

sign of the beast

(alternate title: "i saw becklette with the devil")

166.6.

with the aid of a weekend (plus) spend in fitful sleep, i managed to lose a WHOLE 0.8 pounds. so, um, actually, not a whole anything. october went by so fast. i can't even fathom how hard the next two months are going to be as they zoom past my ears.

shit.