darkest before the dawn, hitting rock bottom, et cetera, et cetera, cliche

so, yesterday was crazy, huh? MAN. i have not had a sweaty, terrifying, it-doesn't-fucking-fit panic like that in AGES.

i didn't like it.

after THAT delightful experience, i hopped onto calorieking.com (where i'm currently enjoying a free week trial before i drop $49 for the year on monday) and tried to make the best of the day. well. 1390 calories? is. a. lot. especially when you fail to eat breakfast or pack lunch and everything you can think of to get is SO HIGH in fat that you gag a little when you see it all in black and white. i ended up being VERY CAREFUL with a chicken caesar salad, ordering it dry with the dressing on the side and then adding a scant tablespoon of that creamy, cheesy goodness to my lettuce and chicken. of course, i always use way less than they give me (about a half a cup! who could eat that much salt??) but i generally enjoy their homemade croutons, too. then dinner was whole grain pasta-- two servings so i could get in my carbs & fiber, plus get my calories up-- with a bit of olive oil and cheese. grated parmesan is a dieter's best friend. so much flavor for so few calories. and then i stuffed down, and i mean STUFFED, a cup and a half of steamed broccoli. (also in there: 1/3 of a cherry pie larabar to sustain me through a BRIEF trip to the mall, 1 fancy chocolate-peanut butter square, 2 cups of coffee and a fancy dark chocolate square.)

i spent a lot of the day wondering how i could bulk up my fiber and calories without adding fat.

then i felt like a moron.

ready?

FRUIT.

yeah, as it turns out, i can't remember the last time i regularly ate fruit. or breakfast. or, actually, lunch every day.

so, we're going out of town tonight, just overnight unless we get stuck there, but i'm making a grocery list for our triumphant return today. there needs to be FRUIT in my life, BREAKFAST and LUNCH, too. jillian and my food scale are on the way, and i have a feeling i might actually start off 2010 at about 165. it's just a hunch, of course, but it's entirely based on what i saw on the scale this morning. (hint: 165.8!)

i like feeling in control. i like using this trial week to get my diet legs back. i like knowing that this is going to work, once and for all.

shame

my husband gives better presents than your husband. or, actually, any guy... ever. his stepmother tears up a little every time he buys me something amazing (like these aldo riding boots) and say, "well, he knows what you like..." while looking wistfully at his father. my husband gives the best presents.

which is probably why i feel so horrible that i can't wear these boots-- these fucking beautiful boots!-- until my KNEES are less fat. yeah: my fucking KNEES. when he gave them to me (christmas eve eve) i immediately put on the right one and admired it. then he told me i can't wear them anywhere until i condition & protect them, so i took it off, gently wrapped it in tissue and returned it to its box.

last night i convinced him that i would be COOOOOOOOOOOLD today, in the wind and the 29* high, and that it would be dry and i would be inside and they would be SAFFFFFFFFFE, ohplease, ohplease, ohplease!

the right one didn't zip up as well as it did five days ago. the left one... there was serious maneuvering to get in to. and then, and then... i stood up.

and knee fat visibly bulged over the tops of my boots making a creepy lump hang around my inner knee parts shouting "look at me! look at me! fatass attempting fashion!!"

balls.

(and, just so we're clear, NO i didn't even consider tucking my pants into the boots. though the look is growing on me...)

it's not muscle. it's not, oh, i just have thick calves. it's really, truly, squishy, squashy FAT. knee fat.

dear amazon.com: the sooner you could get jillian & that food scale here the better. kthxbai.

dear becklette: i hope you regret that piece of semi-frodo white chocolate-honey cake at your mom's last night. and the pizza. and the chili's meal the day before. and stuffing your face at three consecutive nights of family holiday events. and quitting running when the rains started in april. and gaining those 50 pounds in the first place. and gaining back the other thirty. and, actually, getting fat in kindergarten instead of being NORMAL and enjoying social interaction. and... fuck me.

i can't believe i'm too fat for a pair of shoes.

you say you want a resolution

in 2010, i resolve to finish losing weight, quite smoking (a. gain.) and make a happy habit of exercise. i will be a better friend, a better housekeeper and an optimistic person. i will pay off debt and save money. i will eat my veggies. i will love hard and play hard and not think unhelpful thoughts.


easier said, i guess. but i'll try.

so, i've bought my 30 day shred and a food scale. i signed up for a free week of calorieking.com and start paying on monday. (they started me at 1390 calories a day! a FEAST! of course i went over by like 2000 yesterday!) this weekend i'll have to clean out my workout area. the plan is to do the 30 day shred straight through to february 3rd, then stay on level 3 for two more weeks before starting my spinning & kickboxing classes. and yoga. ugh. kid brother is training our mom for $10 a session and i'm seriously considering asking for the same rate. he will also be taking the spinning class with me-- for optimal humiliation, of course.

i feel like sighing. i'm so glad christmas is over-- though it did turn out to be lovely and joyful with sparkling wine and all my brothers, even the oldest of my brothers' best friend, who might as well be my brother, and even the youngest had a beer and we were all cool with it and a flip video camera and a lenox pitcher set, $400 in clothing/shoe/accessory gift cards (loft, gap & aldo), and so much laughter, which is, after all, worth more than the presents. now i have only to squeeze through the new year business and it's all over and okay.

and then i'll finish up here.

so. who all's doing the 30 day shred, and do you wanna start on january 4th with me?



ps- i weighed only 169.4 this morning, and we ate at chili's yesterday, so there's hope yet...

2 cookies for breakfast

for the second day running, i just had two of my boss's wife's chocolate chippers for breakfast. and... i think they're the kind that come in frozen lumps of dough. i love that shit. i spent last week lovingly crafting about 100 dozen cookies (pinwheels, white chocolate macadamia nut, chocolate chip, peanut butter, sugar, oatmeal-no-raisin, meringue, gingerbread snowmen, chocolate-orange-almond biscotti, spritzies... and... maybe something else) and seriously, give me a platter of slice-n-bakes and i'm a happy girl.

is it bad that i think that's better than the buttered italian toast i wanted??

all in all, i've not been going too far off-road. sure, there's been the odd spoonful of truffle (to see if it's set, naturally) and half cup of eggnog (protein!) but really... it could be worse. (LAME, i know...) i haven't gone totally overboard on anything! not even pasta or bread!

it turns out that the classes i'm taking (SPINNING AND KICKBOXING, YO!) won't start until the LAST WEEK of february, but i have high hopes for the 30-day shred. anyone want to chime in? will i feel all rock-hard and fit after spending almost 8 weeks with jillian? will i still feel like i don't belong in the hardcore exercise classes?

well, this is the last day before my little christmas vacation (woohoo, 4 day weekend! good thing i saved all that vacay time for the trip that didn't happen.) which means i probably won't blog for a while. i'll catch you on monday.

oh, and my grad school application? all materials have been submitted. expect news at the end of january or the beginning of february. think academic thoughts?

fear

in just under two weeks, i'm going to edit the "just how fat AM i" section on the sidebar. no, i won't be CHANGING the numbers, but, for the sake of space, i'll be boiling the past year down to january '09, june '09 and january '10.

i will have lost 20 pounds this year.

that's GOOD, right? especially since they followed FIFTY in the previous two! but... it makes me nervous about next year. after dropping 30 pounds or less per year for three years, how am i gonna lose 25-35 in five or six months? AM I going to lose 20-30 pounds in 5-6 months?

dude, i have no idea. but i'm goddamn well going to try. really. really. REALLY hard.

but i'm scared. i'm terribly afraid that 2010 will end up being another year when i just barely manage to eek out a loss. i'm afraid i'll still be fat and out of shape and uncomfortable this summer. i'm afraid i won't be better. and speaking of better? i'm afraid i won't get into grad school. (dear second recommender: please submit the fucking letter. kthxbai.) i'm afraid we won't pay off the debt we need to pay off. i'm afraid we still won't be able to move to a nicer AND cheaper place in the city. i'm afraid our car will die, our guinea pig will die, my grandmother will die. i'm walking around pretty much SCARE SHITLESS is what i'm trying to say.

i'm definitely taking yoga. dr. y says it will help with my anxiety. i'm putting off long-term meds, basically. i'm trying to heal myself through exercise.

precognition

i feel exactly like i did three years ago.

2006 was flickering out, then, and i was a newlywed which, okay, i don't feel like THAT anymore, and i was thinking about GETTING IT DONE.

(i will admit that my plan then? was to lose 100 pounds in 2007. HA!)

2009 is winding down now, like, for real for real. two weeks, dudes! actually, way less: 10 days. and when 2010 brings an end to the revelry, i'm GETTING IT DONE.

i don't remember what my plan was for 2007. i think, honestly, it might have been "eat less, move more" because i had NOT been limiting myself in ANY way for, oh, a year. (funny story: i gained FIFTY POUNDS in the fifteen months between meeting my husband and getting married. and, yes, i mean 15 months. that's three and a half pound a month, almost a pound a week. in theory. only, i actually gained it in, oh, probably six months.) and i've destroyed my records-- in a fit of anger when they started saying thing like +/-0 every week.

but this is the plan for 2010:

1. i'm going to join calorieking.com. i know there are tons of free sites like it, but i need to pay for it. i considered weight watchers, but decided i'd hate myself. (no offense, if that's your thing, but what is up with POINTS?)
2. i'm going to buy--and DO-- the 30 day shred. i've seen lots of good things about it and, frankly, any workout that goes by in 20 minutes and kicks my ass without having to, like, go outside sounds good to me. amazon is selling it for about $11.
   
3. i'm going to sign up for (and take, natch) a spinning class (EEEEE!) and a kickboxing class through the local community-center-without-a-center. that will be an hour of serious and, again, paid for cardio two nights a week for 10 weeks. i think they'll run february through mid-april, so by the time they're over it should be warm enough to wog and i'll be much fitter. i'll probably also take some yoga or pilates for balance.
   
4. in mid-april, i'm going to get my ass back to the track and RUN. maybe i'll even download the real c25k podcasts and stuff.
5. i'll also hire my brother-- currently working on his personal training internship, the last step before certification-- to train me like a man for 6 or 8 weeks.

this plan culminates just as skimpy-clothing-season kicks off, but i have another goal in mind. my husband's stepsister is getting married in may and a lot of people there won't have seen us since OUR wedding (nearly four years by that point) and the size fourteen dress that could. i want to wear an 8. probably with a short skirt, superhigh heels and, as my grandmother would say, legs right up to my ass. see, i'm not likely to ever have nice arms or abs because of the floppy skin, but my legs always seem to bounce back.

so, my end-goals for 2010 (which will really be in june):

1. 130-145 pounds
2. size 8ish
3. and fit, like, REALLY fit

and that's what i'm precognating right f'ing now. the end.

i know.

i know why i'm not losing weight. ready?

it's because i'm not trying.

i'm not sticking to my plan over the course of the week; i'm getting frustrated that i didn't change overnight and trying something different.

i'm not working out hard every day and freely getting sweaty and disgusting; i'm lazily trying to avoid effort (as. always.) and stay pretty.

i'm not making the best possible choices every time; i'm going out of my way to make bad ones (hello, reese's bar at the pharmacy when i went to pick up cold meds for my husband).

so, yes, really, i AM going to take that spinning class. and the kickboxing. and i'm going to buy that popular jillian-from-biggest-loser video. and do it. maybe with a buddy. and i'm going to plan, plan, plan and follow the fuck through. i'm going to drop 2 dress sizes by may. I AM.

but? and PLEASE BELIEVE ME, i am wincing in shame at saying this: it's going to have to wait until the new year. because i've got too goddamn much going on right now.

:D

thanks for the sweet comments! that's more comments than i've had... like, since i posted the picture of my wedding dress. alas, we have three apple cider vinegar & dish soap traps out, but they just don't seem to be working. wth?

so... i stay the same. i stay the same if i eat only a larabar all day. i stay the same if i eat a perfectly balanced 1400 calorie diet. i stay the same if i work out. i stay the same if i eat pizza and fries and cookies. i stay the same.

i'm totally not cool with 167.2, you guys! i want 150. i'd LOVE 145. and, for 135, i think i'd keel over and die.

if i stay the same through new years... it'll be okay. i can feel the pull of the new year already-- the back-to-schoolness, the semi-annual-saleness. i'm ready for 2010. BUT, and this is a big BUT (like mine), i'm not ready for the tests i have until then. i'm not ready for christmas. not being what you might call christian (as in: i don't believe the whole jesus-christ-my-lord-and-savior bit, i do believe the whole be-kind bit) i find that christmas becomes less and less happy for me each year. and new year's eve-- WHOOO BOY-- i was so hoping that last year, on the fifth anniversary of my assault, i could put the damn thing to bed, but it didn't turn out that way. an acquaintance, someone i knew THEN and i know NOW, the guy who introduced me to my husband by not setting me to walk with the knucklehead's best friend in his wedding, saw me panicking and hugged me. fucking HUGGED me. which? is not what to do when someone says, "i cannot be touched right now. do not touch me."

anyway. the holidays? DO NOT WANT.

but! the new year! WANT.

i'm going to take classes-- EXERCISE CLASSES-- through the local "schoolnight" program. spinning and kickboxing. YOWZA. i'm going to budget like mad and pay off credit card debt & my husband's student loans before one or both of us starts grad school in september (i have doubts that i'll get accepted, but he? totally will.). we're going to move to the city. (cue heav'nly choruses singing hallelujah.) is gonna be a good year. these are not "i'll start after the new year" plans, by the way, these are plans that simply CANNOT be done in what remains of this year due to class schedules, leases and, yes, christmas.

fizzling out

why is there so much stress? why do things keep SUCKING?

the closer we get to christmas-- and we are getting close-- and the longer i stay the same, the more i want to just take a break and come back fresh in january. cause THAT ever works out.

i am TIRED. and COLD. and HUNGRY. things here and there are very bad: a former friend of my husband's who repairs guitars appears to have stolen the base i gave him three years ago. my second letter of recommendation hasn't been received by the grad school i applied to. we have fruit flies, AGAIN. money is stressful, especially when my husband up and decides he needs to fly to his mom's asap (it always comes on so suddenly and he REFUSES to plan for it, swearing he doesn't want to go again until she visits us). the holidays are so hard.

i stay the same, but sadder.

167.2

need i say more?

wtf?

i actually DIDN'T pig the fuck out at the party on saturday (although, yeah, i wasn't perfect... there was a box of wine...) and yesterday i drank LOADS of water (see also: there was a box of wine). and today? 171.2. WAAAAAAAAAAAAA? i gained five pounds YESTERDAY?

well, water today. maybe it's an after effect of the party?

i am, unfortunately, beginning to think well, it's PRACTICALLY january already... if i can just make it through the next few weeks without gaining, i can pick up again in january.

GAH.

crazy scattered

obviously, things have been hectic. crazy, even. last night i realized that we are two weeks from christmas. that wouldn't really bother me except we HOST christmas dinner and... oh, MAN am i ever not ready.

i haven't started my baking. i picked up the 20 pounds of flour and some other ingredients last night, but it needs ANOTHER store for eggs and butter and ANOTHER store for nuts and chocolate and... i didn't have the energy. last night, i think we were asleep by 10.

there is not heat in my apartment yet. last year, the super (or whatever) had to come out on christmas eve day because that was the first day our heat dropped under the high sixties. i guess this winter is colder? or cold sooner?

(this is basically a bulleted list without the bullets, no?)

166. 166. 166. no matter what i do. dear god, body, JUST GIVE ME 165!

by virtue of being all... apartmenty with whitish walls and poo-brown carpet, out apartment looks dirty and dreary unless it's PERFECTLY clean and intentionally spruced up. that's a lot of work.

oh, i don't know. my brain is scattered. i would probably give an arm to be 165 on tuesday. actually... i think that would work...

oh hai

i took yesterday off. from everything. sort of.

i took the day off from work and baked buche de noel with my mom and a girlfriend of hers. they used to bake every wednesday, with two other friends, while their ten million kids (okay, maybe... 10 or 11) ran around playing with tupperware and beating each other up. and every year they made a dozen or so of julia child's gorgeous yule logs with marzipan woodland creatures and spun sugar moss and meringue mushrooms. they haven't made them in something like 20 years. it was a TOTAL TRIP.

i went over my calories (with two glasses of wine) but had a great time and it was totally worth it. my baking starts kind of tonight and goes until next saturday. YIKES.

saturday we have a holiday party, which is scary foodwise and with all the baking... god, i would like to lose 5 or 6 pounds by christmas. i'm overwhelmed.

wrong with this picture

i was 90% on plan yesterday. the 10% was working out. oops. today? i've already eaten chocolate. it's not even nine am. it all started because i ran out without my larabar this morning...

in any case. 167.2 means a loss of like half a pound, which isn't awful considering last week.

depression

yesterday, we allowed ourselves to sleep as late as we wanted. the mister slept until 11. i did, too. but then i stayed in bed until nearly three. and i thought a thought i don't think i've ever thought before: i'm depressed.

i mean, i KNOW i'm depressed. i suffer from depression. i'm in treatment for depression. i can identify times in my life when i have been depressed. but i've never, like, identified it when it was happening before.

i'm working now on identifying the stresses. so far i've got:

• i have officially done everything i can to get into grad school and now it's waiting.
• my husband's grad school application process came upon us rather suddenly and is just beginning.
• my body is a pill-free cycling rockstar! which means that i wake up feeling just fine every fourth saturday and by noon i'm feeling fat and gross and sore and tummy-achey. and by one i'm on the rag. yes, that saturday was two days ago.
• as anticipated, we are now broke as shit until thursday.
• as could have (SHOULD have) been anticipated, the weekend, beginning thursday night, became a food free-for-all, including a trip to dave & buster's for the husband's office holiday party.

know how many of those things i can control? ONE. i can control what i eat, what i drink and what i DO. that's how i can get out of this.

you guys, this is just wrong

in my funeral outfit? i look... pretty hot.

don't worry, there's no merry widowish boob action or anything, but i look damn good. i ended up ONLY going to macy's and, frankly, our local one is the CRUMMIEST macy's ever. which is sad because it used to be a super nice strawbridge's before the buy-out.

i managed, through dumb luck, to stumble upon a lone size 12 pencil skirt on a rack of... cheetah print dresses? with... faux fur trim? and... i dunno. i averted my eyes. it was right outside the fitting room where clearly someone stashed it when they decided they didn't want it and didn't want to carry it the eighteen inches to the return rack. wth?

then i settled on a pretty plain, silk-cotton (i think?), 3/4 sleeve, cowl-neck sweater in charcoal.

i picked up some tights (HUE! unrippable!) in not the biggest size-- one pair irresistible argyle and one solid black, both super control-- and a cami in case the cowl was even remotely low, and was off.

to the shoe department, that is, where i snagged a pair of kenneth cole reaction wedge-heel, knee-high boots. for seventy five dollars. which my grandma gave me. HOT. DAMN.

seriously, this post isn't ENTIRELY about my funeral outfit. i mean, it is, but for a fat-related reason:

• skirt: 12
• sweater: m
• cami: m
• tights: one size 2 and one size 3 (out. of. FIVE.)
• knee-high boots? size 8.5 because i needed the extra quarter inch in the shaft. c'est la vie. and c'est la my fat calves.

and, a note on control-top.

for a loooooong time, i thought control top was bs. because, dude, it's all well and good if you're a statue, but the minute you sit or talk or breath, that shit is rolling down your tummy, digging into you and cutting off your circulation.

ah, but NOW! i am floppy! and smooshy! and i'll be damned if the control top didn't CONTROL. i'm looking all sleek and smooth. and i'm pretty comfortable! this, my friends, is love.

(yes, the shopping sucked monkey balls. i felt like i was teetering on the edge of 240 again, sweaty and lumpy and miserable. but it was so worth it.)

(yes, i also bought a three dollar packet of choco-covered almonds.)

awful

we all know the agony of having to buy new clothes-- fancy clothes, even, that need fitting and tailoring and stuff-- when we're not EXACTLY comfortable with our bodies, right? a bridesmaid dress, a wedding dress, a suit.

a suit.

i will admit that i protect my husband from things that will force him to acknowledge his weight. we have no full-length mirrors, even though i'm getting to where i'd like one. he doesn't tuck in shirts. we don't go for hikes together or the beach. i buy his clothes a size bigger when i see it needs to be done. frankly, he's gained a good deal of weight since we met, mostly while i was gaining my 75ish pounds, but a bit more since. i suspect he's gained about 125 pounds. and i'd like him to lose 100 or more.

but i believe that, as i did, he will make the change when he is ready.

and i think he's ready.

my poor husband went through a terrible ordeal last night: he bought a suit. this of course involved measuring tapes and numbers and trying on, trying on, trying on. and then they brought out the five hundred year old blind italian tailor (ALL tailors are 500 years old blind italian men, i SWEAR TO GOD) and stood in the gentle embrace of a three-way mirror, under fluorescent lights, while they poked, prodded, pinned and generally discussed him like he wasn't there.

(we managed the whole thing-- pants, jacket and tailoring-- for less than $200 bucks and it will be ready tonight, thanks to the ANGEL of a salesman at the men's wearhouse.) (who i may or may not have had an inappropriate dream about last night.) (in a xanax sleep!)

on the way home, he said, "um, we are going to workout together, right?"

i felt just... awful.

tonight i have to go through the same, but i don't wear the biggest size anymore. i'm going to try three stores: target (hoping their limited edition holiday collection is nicer, not just more expensive, than their usual fare), macy's (with a 25% off card!) and the old standby ann taylor loft (oh, MAN, do i ever not want to spend that much). it's going to be easier for me.

grief

my uncle passed away last night. NOT the guy i call my uncle who is really my dad's cousin. my actual uncle. my dad's mentally retarded younger brother.

i don't know how i would deal with this grief if i cared. it's nothing personal, it's just... it's as if a stranger died. i haven't seen him in three years, and that's IF he came to my wedding (i don't recall). if not, it's four. before that... funerals. when we were children, he favored the boys, buying them hess trucks and letting them watch (but never touch!) his train set. the girls were useless to him. but the really weird part is that the death of this stranger has deeply affected my father, and for that i am sorry, just like when my grandfather died four years ago.

i was up all night after the call woke me. i was thinking about how callous i must be to be worry about the inconvenience. i bought LOTS of christmas presents yesterday, and now money's tight to be buying a suit jacket (husband's are too small) and a black dress or whatever (mine are... i don't know. gone? too big? awol? i have nothing to wear.)-- what kind of asshole thinks of that?

since i'm not really part of the family, i'm not concerned that people will be piling food on my counters or worrying about whether i eat. so, that's good. but i don't know when i'll workout.

in any case: 167.8 is the official start weight.