the thing of it

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. riddle me this, internet:

anniversary of a trauma + husband/best friend in the universe for ever and ever amen out of town + pms + grandma's no-bake chocolate peanutbutter oatmeal bars = ??

if you guessed, "the most awkward food journal EVAH" you totally win.

the man will be home in two sleeps and the lady-related carb-and-chocolate fest should be over momentarily. today is the official end of the trauma-versary festivities. um, and eventually (later rather then sooner, please) i'll run out of the cookies.

but, mygod, self! pull it together! ughhhhhhhhhhhh.

jumped the weigh-in gun

okay, okay. TODAY is weigh-in day. and TODAY i'm at 159.0. still, no complaints from me. i'm wearing a medium tank, a medium top and gap size 12a jeans from... 2003. a little out of style, a little unflattering, a little reminder of when my life was on a wild upswing (i had be cast as understudy to a fantastic role, my play was being produced, i had lots of loving friends and had lost 30 pounds... and then the shit hit the fan).

so. this is great. i look, well, thin. i feel great. i could stay here, if not for the batwings and thigh lumps, and, hi, a little definition in the calf areas would be swell. if i never intended to wear anything other than jeans and 3/4 sleeve tops, i'd stay here for realsies.

but i'm still pushing. here's what for:

• i really want to lose 4 pounds before may 22. totally doable.
• i definitely need to finally finish c25k by july.
• i'd love to drop another 10 pounds by then and hit the beach feeling really good.
• i need to bring the weight-loss part of my life to a close by september, and i want to be between 135-140 pounds-- another 5-10 pound loss after july's goal.

tonight i have w2, wo2 scheduled. and a half hour walk with my husband. tomorrow i spin and add a 1/2 hour of weights. thursday we're going to an alumni weekend even at BNGS (where my husband did his undergrad): beer. friday i have high hopes that w2, wo3 will keep me from stuffing my face at a jewelry demo. saturday, a morning walk and weight workout should keep my from eating myself to death at a first communion party. SELTZER. srsly.

trending

i think it's clear to see from the list over there (>>>>>>) that my weight continues to trend downward. not necessarily at the pace i'd prefer, but what are you going to do, right? especially when you're eating leftover green bean casserole 2 meals a day.

my leep is scheduled for next thursday. this morning i dropped my husband off at the airport to visit his family. tonight i have a shopping trip planned. tomorrow: work and a massage! i'm leek souping this weekend, but my uncles will be in town so... it might be more like 3 days but only half-assed. and i'm cat-sitting.

there will be a 5-week spinning class after this one ends (in. two. weeks.) and we're definitely going to take it. LOVE spinning. i'm looking forward to moving into the city so i can take spinning at BNGS's gym five days a week. JUST KIDDING. maybe 2 or 3. can't drop the ball on weight lifting, ya know, or running. oh, wait... where is that running ball?

anyway. still alive. still pretty freaked, though the leep ain't no thing... according to my grandmother who had it almost 50 years ago (before it was LEEP when it was still called a "coning") and my mom who claims that "everyone who's anyone has had that." sometimes i feel like my mom maybe could have provided me with a little more information about lady-business growing up. which is why MY hypothetical daughters will know these things:

1. two methods is better than one
2. he might be carrying something you don't know about (see: mono & hpv)
3. kick, scream, scratch, bite, WHATEVER, if you don't want something to happen to you-- be DONE to you-- fight like hell
4. preventative care is important (2 cancer scares and 4 fillings later i have the message)

::end soapboxing::

also, end blogging. it's too goddamn early.


oh, ps-- i hadn't seen my husband's grandfather since christmas and HE DIDN'T RECOGNIZE ME. score.

holy. mackrel.

165 pounds + admission to grad school = best day ever.

i kind of can't believe i'm here, actually.

so... first of all: 165. this is HUGE. this is MONUMENTAL. this is "OVERWEIGHT." i'm not death-fat anymore. i'm not obesity-epidemic (boogita-boogita) anymore. i'm not freak-fat anymore. i'm REGULAR fat. i'm a little soft, a little pear-shaped, but not OMFG GIANT BEAST LADY. does it feel different? a little. probably not as much as 140 will. and i think 140 is the goal. 135 would be swell, but 140 is solidly "normal"-- safely in the zone with a 5 pound buffer, but njot unachievable. if i'm THISCLOSE to being a smaller size at that point, i'll consider trying for a few more, but i think 140 is a winner.

this also means that, when my tax refund arrives, i'm gonna hightail it to the recovering actor's place of employ and distract the ever-loving shit out of her for, oh, two, three hours. it's gonna be SO MUCH FUN. (confession? some of the make-up i use with some regularity spent time in freshman dorms. OUR freshman dorms. please don't shoot!)

so... grad school. this means a lot of things. this means a way out of my dead-end (but secure and flexible!) job. it means oh, about $50k more student loan debt. it means two years of hard work, an internship and writing my first thesis. it also means a chance to prove that i AM smart, i CAN work hard, i DO deserve happiness and i'm NOT a total fuck-up. my acceptance? is provisional. i need to maintain a b average for a term or two or i'm out. it's because i slacked like WHOA in undergrad. due, in part, to the way i skated through high school and still scored a full academic scholarship to college. and in part to the bad thing. and, i'll admit it, in part to beer and pot. (and BOYS.)

i'm gonna get some LATIN on my diploma this time. tangent: my husband did his undergrad at this university. i desperately wanted to see if there was any latin on the basic diploma, so he dug his out. the only latin was the gold sticker that said cum laud. "hm," i said, "that's disappointing. i wonder if the sticker is bigger for the better ones." "baby, it doesn't GET much better," he said, all cocky and shit, and i had to be all, "oh, you'll see. there's cum laude, summa cum laude and magna cum laude. YOU have 'with honors' but then one is 'with HIGH honors' and one is 'with HIGHEST' honors." (all smug and shit.) "oh, which is which?" he says. "dude, i don't know! i got a c in latin." and... that basically illustrates my entire stance on education up until now.

(i can't help feeling a little odd about all the times i just typed "cum" here. i suppose it's the COLLEGE STUDENT in me.)

OKAY, OKAY, FOCUS:

• calorie target & nutrients
• water, water, water
• workout, either with my trainer-brother or alone if the snowmaggedon comes before 6
• next goal: 161 & -75 pound pictures

get ready

well. isn't that disappointing. aside from the fact that i can't recall a Tuesday Drop in recent history that could knock me down to the weight i boasted i would see on my first weigh-in of the new year, but my food scale and 30-day shred haven't arrived! and might not until TOMORROW! woe is me.

(also: was total pig for two. days. straight.)

the good news is that, despite a really unhappy number staring up at me this morning after a three-day absence from the scale, i actually ate breakfast today! it wasn't my good, well-planned, nutritious breakfast, but it was a start. (it was 2 slices of ezekiel raisin toast with apple butter and 2 strips of facon, if you're curious, and black coffee.) AND i packed 2 clementines and will buy a nice, healthy lunch. dinner will be either chicken burgers or chicken sausages with... other foods. i haven't gotten that far.

i'm trying really hard to suppress the negativity i feel about my body right now because, for one thing, it's that time of the month (AGAIN) and that's never nice and for another, well, i'm going to be working out hardcore by tomorrow at the latest, so i'll feel better then. right?

national diet-starting day

(or is it maybe international?)

so. this may not be news if you've been reading a while, or if you know me in real life... which.. got i hope it's just the one of you. but. six years ago (today!) i was assaulted (in a, you know, parts-that-your-bathing-suit-covers way) and i'll be damned if that fucking piece of shit hasn't managed to ruin a perfectly nice opportunity for champagne and kissing for the rest of my goddamn life. or, you know, at least these past five years.

and it doesn't help that four days ago several of my facebook friends became facebook friends with him. fucking facebook, man!

or that i was out of town with my brothers & husband at my uncles' house.

with a bunch of strangers (the party consisted of me, my husband & 2 brothers, and eight middle-aged gay guys-- AWESOME, no, really, it was great, for a while).

and under lots of stress re: husbands academic/professional aspirations and how they KEEP FUCKING CHANGING.

but i've been a goddamn wreck. since... um, about 3pm yesterday. so, despite maintaining a good deal of control with wednesday's food-- aside from the SMALL slice of red velvet cake and three kettle one & clubs-- and being fairly good about breakfast yesterday-- supplementing my huge heap of grapefruit with a teeny sliver of coffee cake-- and being AWESOME at a cafeteria-style lunch--hello, spring mix, chicken, hard boiled egg, dipping my fork in ranch and an apple-- i basically went bat shit crazy with the eating & drinking from about 5pm yesterday until... now.

calorie counts since i joined calorieking for my free trial:

• sunday 12/27: 2780!! (i know, right?)
• monday 12/28: 1760
  
• tuesday 12/29: 1309 (in range! 1290-1390)
• wednesday 12/30: 1853
• thursday 12/31: 2095
• friday 1/1: 1754

so, tonight i made myself a little weekday plan that i THINK will work. but it's a CRAZY lot of food. check it out:

• breakfast: muffin tin spinach omelette with 1 egg, 1 egg white and 1/2 cup of chopped spinach; 2 low fat multi-grain waffles with 1 tablespoon of apple butter each; coffee, black.
• am snack: medium apple with 1/2 roasted almonds.
• lunch: 3 cups of spring mix, 3 ounces chicken & 1/2 ounce ceasar dressing; 15 whole grain crackers.
• pm snack: 1 cup grapefruit.
• dinner: 4 ounces protein; 1 serving high-fiber carb (hello, potato!); 1 cup veggies

calories: 1315; fat: 42g; carb: 120g; protein: 80g; fiber: 25g.

shwhew. it's more fat than i'd really like, but my doctor (who suggested i try alli since she had a patient who lost 15 pounds with no side effects!) always said to try to stay under 50 grams... and i have. i'm really following calorieking's guidelines for the macro-nutrients here because... i don't know enough.

doesn't that look like a shit-ton of food? doesn't it look like... too much? oh. well. i'm giving it a full month, along with jillian (dear amazon: anticipated delivery january FIFTH? come the fuck on, really?) and i'll adjust from there if i need to.

but, boy, am i going to feel like a smacked ass when i realize that i wasn't eating enough 2/3 of the time. (the other third of was eating very poorly, of course, also NOT HELPFUL.)

so, what it comes down to is... i'm flushing any remaining cigarettes on sunday. i'm eating right and exercising daily. and i'm finishing this once and for all.

pretty optimistic for a chick who's spent the last 33 hours crying, no?

new year's resolutions: lose 25-35 pounds. take yoga and get bendy. quit smoking once and for all. ring in 2011 on my terms.

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.

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...

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.

graduate record exams

as you may or may not know, i am in the process of applying to a PRESTIGIOUS university for my ms degree after what can best be described as a train wreck of an undergrad career. encouraging, isn't it? you also may or may not know that i am very bright and an excellent student. god knows, anybody who looks at my undergrad transcripts will fall into the "not" group on that one. it is ugly, my friend.

my personal timeline for completing my application is december 31. it's rolling admission for this program and, though the application deadline is the end april for them, i want to get mine in a bit early so i can beg to get in. that's right, BEG. i'm going to try to arrange an admissions interview, even though i don't believe they normally do them until you've passed the paper phase of the application. so, tell me what you think of this idea i've been tossing around...

so, i'll go in there all, listen, mister, i know my gpa sucks monkey balls, but LOOK! at my two GLOWING letters of recommendation, and my resume which is not too shabby, and my gre scores which (god help me) do not suck any kind of zoo-dwelling balls. see, a fucking bad, bad thing happened to me and it sort of messed up my life for a while, but i can stick-to-it NOW, i've got the bull by the horns and i won't let go. you want some proof? BAM. here's my wedding photo. look. what. i. did.

bad idea? overly personal? just plain awkward? i'm trying to find an angle here because i'm kinda type-a about stuff and if one brick goes missing the whole project (code for: my fucking life) is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED.

saw another odd overnight two pound drop today. can only assume a return to normal, healthy foods is causing a drop in retained water. but i have hope of posting a happy number for november.

two months, two days. so says my ticker. i guess that's left in this year. yikes.

do i need to?

the short answer is yes. yes, i do need to do all the frivolous stuff listed below (the long meal prep once a week, the oktoberfest party, the hayride) because it's what makes me HAPPY.

i suffer from depression which i've chosen to take on without the aid of pharmies. i know this is my choice and i can change my mind whenever i want. but when i spend days and days baking like i just did, or cook an unreasonably complicated meal, i feel alive-- and that doesn't freak me out. (unlike the aliveness i feel after, say, working out or having sex.) it calms me. i suppose if i had a garden i could work with my hands while getting a little sweaty and not be left with a big pile of delicious food at the end but... i don't. besides, i am PASSIONATE about food. not that i love to eat-- oh, but i do-- i love to create something that makes other people happy. on monday i didn't eat one bite of creamcicle cupcake, but i watched while my husband's uncles and cousins devoured almost two dozen. and i laughed.

i feel really unconnected to a lot of things right now-- my work, my weight loss, my long-term plans-- but i know this is a phase and (this is what i learned from college) when it passes? i'll want to have kept up.

i'm absolving myself of weight loss efforts for the rest of the week. no, i'm not going all last-supper and shit, i'm just being REGULAR. come monday, i'll have a plan worked out and prepared. i might not blog tomorrow, but i'll be here monday. i promise. with bells on.

part two: higher education (day 4)

well, duh. i gained weight. i went from a 12/14 to an 16/18 by christmas. but i also reinvented myself. i was loud, bawdy, proud, clever and, well, beginning to be slutty. but only just beginning. after christmas break i met a boy (there was a boy the first semester, but he's of no interest), f. a boy who could do push-ups with me sitting on his back. a boy who was a total, unbelievable asshole fuckwit. a boy whose repeated dumpings and getting-back-togethers led me to starve myself, experiment with diet pills and generally go batshit crazy in order to make him want me back. i actually think the batshit-crazy part was what kept him coming back. at least a dozen times. with no regard to how fat or thin either of us was. he left school after that semester, but we stayed in touch for more than two more years.

that summer, i poured my heart and soul into weight loss. well, actually, my heart and lungs. i started taking diet pills again and took up smoking full time. i barely ate, slept whenever i wasn't working and drank a glass of wine every night for dinner. at the end of the break i bought a red dress in a size 10-- which ALMOST fit.

shockingly, returning to a diet of beer, caf food and late-night burger kings runs, i gained back some weight. and then, oh and then. just off campus i was assaulted by a student who was apparently very popular. i discovered very quickly who my real friends were, and who i was. i hid out for a month, eating junk, drinking hard and chainsmoking. then i reported the incident to the police and the badness escalated. then i hid out for three more months.

when i left to spend the summer with friends in another state, i was easily back to my starting weight. i held steady there, unable to stick to a plan-- even diet pills-- and lose weight. when i returned to school, i made up for my meekness, my fatness and my self-hate by sleeping around. and drinking. that year passed in a whirlwind of booze, cigarettes and jeans that i should have admitted were two sizes too small.

today's tbds looks easy, but i think it might be deceptive. also, yesterday's task is AWESOME. it prevented me from eating soft serve and fresh pretzels at the farmer's market and bread and cheese while i made h's dinner. i can see why people lose weight on this program even before they start to diet. i, however, appear to be about 211 today. but i think some of that is because (note: intimate details ahead, and not in a good way) i don't poop on the weekends because i have a nervous bowel and i've developed the routine of drinking my coffee at the office and then pooping. i neither drink coffee nor go to the office most weekends. so that sucks (especially since my "official" weigh day is monday.) and my fingers are all swelled up, i think maybe from the heat? but i try not to think about those things much... i feel like i'm making excuses.

stay tuned for tomorrow's post: the meet cute (part three).