Shame

Dear Jackie,

Well I've postponed this post by one day, but I suppose I shouldn't push it back any further. I had my official weigh in for last week and I gained one pound. And I've heard it all: one pound is nothing, you're going to have weeks that don't go well, weight is always fluctuating... True as they may be, I know that this one is my fault. I didn't lose for 2 weeks, and then I gained, and it's all due to my eating. When it took me 5 weeks to lose 10 pounds, I got discouraged. It's not coming off fast enough! I don't want to deprive myself of the sweets! Truth be told though, going back to old habits so quickly frustrates me even more.

Time to fix it. I did decent yesterday, ate my "clean" meals, and had very minimal slip ups through the day. I made it until almost 4:00 before rummaging in my car for some stale popcorn and ate a few handfuls driving home from work. Now, I have to tell you here though, that I did not eat popcorn because I was hungry. It was pure necessity to keep me awake! I almost fell asleep and hit 2 mailboxes before resorting to the snacking out of turn. I also ended up having 3 fingerlicks of frosting, 3 potato chips, and 2 bite size brownies before heading to bed. BLURGH...

Today? So far pretty good! My only slip up, 3 hershey kisses. BUT! I resisted the temptation for the chocolate chip bagel and the peanut butter frosted chewy fudge brownie. 2 things I hate to have to pass up! But I did it. And I feel that small victory! I also spent some time reading about the contestants in a new competition on http://winloseorblog.blogspot.com. Perhaps they'll all encourage me some!

Tomorrow? Only time will tell. I'll get there again... hopefully before I gain any more weight back! I have to share a few quotes with you though that I will be displaying at my desk and in my kitchen:

"There's no such thing as a bad day - only bad moments in a good day."

"Nothing is impossible; the word itself says, 'I'm possible!'"

"Every day is a new day unless we drag in the past."

"The only one who can limit your possibilities is you."

"A bad attitude is like a flat tire. If you don't change it, you'll never go anywhere."

Tomorrow is a new day...

Dear Jackie,

Well I've been quite frustrated with myself. It's not an excuse, but I had a terrible week emotionally last week, and my eating slipped significantly. Official weigh in says that I did not lose or gain again, but I was constantly eating junk food and forgetting my supplements. So! How am I going to fix this? I'm ashamed to admit that I don't have the same motivation that I started with and that I have become discouraged enough to want to give up. The only time I trust that I will do workouts is to swim before work, but my sleep suffers. And my eating suffers when I become emotional.

Obviously I need a plan to change at 6 weeks in. I'll try to be more aware of how late the evening is getting so that I can get better amounts of sleep. But more than that, I do need to stick to eating only what I plan on eating for the day and not giving in to temptation.

*(OMG! Side note: the lady in the cubicle next to me at work is someone that I've formed a friendship with and we get along well. But this morning I could have wrung her neck!!! She comes into my office with a bag of Hershey kisses and dumps them into my dish on my back file cabinet, knowing FULL WELL that I'm trying so hard to lose weight! How supportive, right?? GGRRRRRRR!!!!)*

I've pulled your book back out and started looking through the menu suggestions and recipes, and have found some recipes for HEALTHY cookies online that I will have to try. Many of the recipes are free of flour or use whole wheat flour, sugar free or reduced sugar, and use flaxseed meal as well. I'll be sharing these recipes as I try them, and only the good ones. I know that these foods are not in your "clean eating," but I feel like I'm going to have to break the bad eating habit slowly, and if I have healthy options for a cookies or muffin, it will be a lot easier.

Dear Jackie,

Yesterday was my official weekly weigh in. No loss, no gain. Since my original goal was to lose 2 pounds per week and it’s been 5 weeks, I’m now right on target. Of course, that means I now need to be sure to lose 2 pounds this week. Well, yesterday gave me a great start…

I got up at my regular time and ate a banana before getting in my car to go swimming before work. My stomach felt a little queasy, but I figured it would pass. I got to the pool and sat down on the bench in the locker room and just about tossed the few cookies I had. So, back to the car, drove home and climbed back into bed. I did get hungry later in the morning but was still nervous about eating, so I tried a very bland bowl of special K. Seemed to do fine, and stayed down! Had another big bowl around noon and kept that down too, and by the time dinner rolled around I was fine for the steaks on the grill, baked potato, corn, and peas. Didn’t take any supplements for the day though, didn’t want to risk it. Feeling great today though, back to my normal self and starting my “clean” eating! I’m eating my oatmeal with blueberries and truvia for sweetness as I type, and I’ll be taking my supplements too, right on track!




Truvia Facts and Information at http://truvia.org/

Let's Do the Math...

Dear Jackie,

I finished out my week of swimming workouts pretty strong this morning. Happy to report that I ended up swimming before work 4 days this week, and swam at least a mile on 3 of those days. Now let’s do the math. One mile is 1760 yards. One length of the pool is 25 yards. When I swim a mile, I swim 1750 yards, or 70 lengths of the pool. Whew! Sounds like a lot huh? Now let’s run through the week:

Tues: 1800 yds
Wed: 1500 yds
Thur: 2100 yds
Fri: 1750 yds

Grand Total: 7150 yards!

Today I actually swam the mile straight through with only stopping for less than 10 seconds to adjust my MP3 player. I pushed myself a little harder and actually did the mile in 32 minutes. This is huge for me! When I got back into the pool about a month ago, it was taking me about 40 minutes to swim the same distance. I’m really excited because now I know that I can push myself just a little and get more distance into the workout. We’ll see how it goes next week!

Humiliating...

Dear Jackie,
I’ve learned so much from your book! Now let me teach you something. There are many things that cameras are for taking pictures of: new babies, graduations, weddings, nature, Christmas trees, kids with Santa, damage documentation in an accident, hot men you meet on vacation and will never see again, dogs wearing ridiculous outfits, men dressed in drag walking around Chicago, dolphins, high school football games, and so on.

However, there is one thing that cameras are NOT for taking pictures of: overweight women wearing workout clothes that are self conscious about how fat they are and yet they turn so the camera can capture every angle.

Now, granted, I need to have some way to compare and see results through my weight loss progress. But knowing this and caring about this when you finally are faced with the photos are two different things. Just a glance is enough to make me cry! But I’ll be sticking with what you tell me to do, so hopefully these photos will start showing a smile that gets bigger and bigger as my body gets smaller and smaller.

So here are my photos. I realize that I don’t have photos from the very beginning, but people say the camera adds 10 pounds, and I’ve lost 10, so I figure we’re right about even. I’ll keep you posted with new pictures for every 10 pounds lost, and we both better pray that I see results! Now if I can just get my photographer to make me look a little better for the 20 pounds lost photos, we’ll be alright…