Trying trying trying

Scary!  Fourth of July, two birthday parties, late night pizza, work BBq, out to dinner. All conspire to throw me off the track. Not only have I not lost my 2 pounds so far, but I've gone the other direction. This is what I was afraid of---just spinning around re-losing the same two or three pounds forever.  BUT!  I haven't quit, and the month isn't over.  So, I'll see how this turns out.  In spite of my many failings, there are even more successes, and I think some of the psycological barriers are getting thinner.

My latest goofy exercise scheme is a fun one. Go from New York to Los Angeles, either by bike or on foot. These things really work for me. When I was only three miles from Newark, NJ--I went downstairs and rode those three miles. I'm still just in the beginning phase. I'm on my way to Pottersdown, NJ, 39 miles from Newark.  Today, to my great annoyance I woke up at 6:30 even though I didn't have to be at work till 9.  So I walked the 5K. Smart, because it's been blazing hot.

Full of sugar

July 5

Ugh!  I thoroughly enjoyed the fourth and my day off from counting. But the last thing did me in. I had a normal breakfast--good sign! It felt natural to pass on having bacon since I'd be having fried chicken for lunch--it didn't feel like a "diety" decision, just felt normal. Hooray! Maybe I'm developing a few normal food instincts after all.  Had my extra crispy KFC for lunch, had my decadent almond joy brownie bites (321 cal for a smallish square--ouch!), dinner was equally bad--popcorn, salami, cheese, olives and cherry pie and ice-cream.  So far, so good--at least good as in, I'd eaten everything I wanted.  THEN we went to an acquaintances house to see the fireworks. Uh boy. HUGE rootbeer floats and cookies. I didn't feel as though I could refuse.  THAT put me over the edge.  I am sugared out.  I didn't want breakfast, and I'm kind of thinking I might not want lunch either. It's nice to know that my body doesn't want ALL food. It only wants what it wants and no more. There's hope!

On the radar

Hey!  I find that I don't want my treat to be off the radar after all.  I got some salami and some German grilling cheese that I'm excited to try. I have plenty of calories saved up tonight to enjoy it. It's still hard tho. I don't know how Sean did it. 1,500 - 2,200 (trying to keep it around 2000 preferably) is still a strain, and I can see that I will need--not want, but need to have fairly frequent days where I actually eat until I am satisfied--not just barely full, to stay the course. But I think that's going to be ok. Tomorrow is the 4th--all bets off. I'm making some almond joy brownie bites that I'm excited about as well as a cherry pie. At the moment tho--just being really full is what is sounding the best. I'm eating plenty I feel as though I ought to be full and it's weird that I'm not.  For breakfast I had an omelete, 2 slices of toast, a banana and milk. for lunch I had a pizza pocket, a large serving of cucumber slop, 100 popcorn and a fiber one bar. I could easily eat a large steak dinner just now.

Met goal!

Met my June goal!!!!  The frequent weighing at the end was smart.  I did not do well at ALL at the campout. The culprit was bacon. They fixed a TON of it for breakfast and I ate at least a pound, maybe more. For dinner, Saturday we had pizza, so the day was pretty much a wash out. Even still, Sunday morning I was exactly at the 198 goal.  Since I know I was weighing at 196 for several days at least, I'm going with a 195 pound goal for July.

I've changed my mind about my reward though. I made a weight watcher's pie yesterday which is quite good, Dave made cookies and cream ice-cream which is GREAT. And for the fourth on Thursday, I'm making a cherry pie for tradition's sake and some almond joy brownie bites because they sound fabulous. I don't think I want Mama Crimin's cookis as well.  Instead, I'm going to Smiths tonight to reward myself with salami and a fancy cheese. I'll enjoy it tomorrow as an off the radar snack, and then continue to enjoy it, but count it for the rest of the month.

I got right back on track yesterday, didn't find it too hard to stop at one serving of potroast and mashed potatoes, had my pie, had room for ice-cream, but didn't finish the ice-cream. I was suddenly done and I just let myself be done.

Today I had a Mormon Muffin (no idea--I called it 200cal) and an omelete for breakfast, I'll have a big sandwich for lunch with a cucumber yogurt salad and some snyders pretzels, for dinner we're trying a Hungry Girl recipe for mac and cheese.  The big problem at the moment is exercise--we're having a heat wave, and the WSU gym is under construction. I can, and plan to exercise at home, but the heat is making me feel lethargic.

Still down

YAY!  Still at 196 today. I was a bit worried because the Zuppas dinner probably put me a little over my 2200, and yesterday I was quite hungry for dinner and had a second sloppy joe which put me right about at 2200. No problem!  Whew!  I'm trying not to be too concerned with the scale, which is oddly, why I'm weighing myself a lot just now. I don't want to weigh myself on the last day of the month and have the number reflect a flux either up or down. If I weigh frequently during the last week and take an average, that should give me a better sense of what my goal should be for the next month.

Today we're going on the ward campout and I really feel as though I can have whatever I want and still be ok. I'm not going to freak out over each calorie--I'm eating to leave myself a good 1000-1200 cal for dinner and I doubt I'll eat much more than that. That still means a good breakfast and lunch for me too. Here's today's happy non-weight watchers menu.

Breakfast--1 serving oatmeal with a whole apple and cinnamon
2 slices bacon
milk--about a cup 1%
juice--diet--almost no calories.

Snack--banana

Lunch
2 homemade pieroshis (meat turnovers)
yogurt to dip the turnovers
a thick slice of cheddar cheese
a large helping of peas
10 olives
apple sticks--this is junk food tastes kind of like apple jacks but you get a whole lot (38 sticks) for just 110 calories
Diet fresca

Dinner
2 hotdogs with all the toppings
Baked Lays
chip dip (fat free sourcream with onion soup mix)
1 or 2 smores

The ward is fixing breakfast for us tomorrow. No doubt it will be heavy, but who cares? I'll try to be moderate, but if I can't manage it, I'll adjust the rest of the day or exercise, or simply get right back on track with lunch.

The plan du jour

Try and try and try.  Catherine is off and doing fine--phew. And I've been to Disneyland and Hong Kong since I last wrote. I was re-reading a couple of my last posts. I still feel largely the same way. One thing I learned from weight watchers is that losing weight takes a whole lot more time than I like it too. I hated that if I went off the program even slightly, the weight loss would stop.  Better, was our insurance program, where if I lost only 3 pounds in a month, the insurance would pay for whatever program.  That was still the best, most motivating plan I've ever found.

I think if nothing else, I've learned to respect the process of weight-loss. I can't focus on it too much or too little. Personally, I can't (don't want to) move very fast. But I DO want to move.  I've put back almost all the weight I so laboriously lost on weight watchers. Never again. Meaning--never again will I diet like that and do that to my body.

My current idea is to simply lose TWO pounds a MONTH--not a week, a MONTH. If I lose more, great. If I lose the two pounds I will celebrate--weirdly enough by getting some kind of a food that I want. I know you're not supposed to reward yourself with food. But food is truly motivating for me, and I think most diet rules are flat out wrong anyway. The idea is that I'm learning to control food.  So, why not? If I make goal this month, I'm ordering some Mama Crimin's cookies. They're supposed to be amazing.  It's interesting to note that I could not have done this plan 5 years ago.  I didn't have enough respect for the amount of effort even 2 pounds takes, and I would have eaten everything I wanted and then tried to lose it in the last week.  That may have even sort of worked when I was younger, but not anymore. I think if I put out a good effort on most days--not a perfect effort necessarily, not a weight watchers level of restriction, but a good effort I can do it.

I'm keeping my calories between 1500 and 2200 and exercising. Most days I hit around 2,000. So far, in June I'm down 4 pounds! The funny thing is that I often feel physically the way I did on weight watchers. I'm usually good and hungry for meals and I have that light feeling, but I haven't felt deprived at all because I really am eating what I want and even the portions I want. Happily, my body really dosen't even want much more than 2000 cal. What IS different is the stupid grazing between meals, giant bowls of ice-cream, large amounts of cheese and popcorn for no reason. If there IS reason---ie: I WANT it. Then I seem to have a large enough calorie range to accomodate that. Also, I haven't worried too much about celebrations--we had a luau at work--I ate whatever I wanted.  Last night I was starving and light headed--we went to Zuppas, and I had what I wanted. The fourth of July is coming up and that means fried chicken and pie of course. I feel happy that I can enjoy these things. Four pounds down, it's a good start. The goal for June is 198. I'm getting my mouth ready for Mamma Crimins.

Balance

I had what I think is a new and obvious thought, but it's so obvious, that I wonder if I've even mentioned it here before and forgotten about it. 10 years ago, when I finally gave up caffeinated Diet Coke, it took a good THREE YEARS before caffeine free diet coke felt as good to drink as the caffeinated kind. Stopping overeating has got to be the same. Now that I think of it, I'm sure it will take AT LEAST three years and probably more, before eating normally feels as good to me as overeating. Oddly, that's good news. It helps me to have confidence that eventually, normal eating will be what I want to do.

The trick is going to be to find balance. I can't quit eating cold turkey. And when I'm hungry, it's difficult to make good decisions about what my body needs as opposed to what my mind wants. The solution there is advance planning. Overall though, I think the real solution is going to be finding that balance between what I want, what I need, what is simply bad habit, what is nutritional. I want to be conscious of my decisions, but not too much so because that's out of balance too.

I also like the simple idea of moving toward my goal or away from it. Catherine told me of a missionary who had to lose X number of pounds before they would allow him to go, he did it too. She described one day when everyone else had their Wendy's hamburger, and this young man had a turkey sub. These kinds of things are so hard for me to treat normally---I bet the other kids eating Wendy's were thin. Why didn't this poor guy get to eat a hamburger?

Okay, think this through. EVERY person who ate a burger and fries that day was moving AWAY from being a healthy person. If the others were thin, it's because they usually make better decisions. This missionary had made too many poor food decisions which is why he was fat, but he still gets to make the SAME choice. He could have eaten the burger and fries too, and it would have slowed his weight loss down. He made a different choice and it moved him in the right direction. I have to remember that I'M NOT BEING PUNISHED. I am in exactly the same boat as everyone else. I make good choices, I move toward good health, I make poor choices, I move toward poor health. I'm overweight, which means I've made too many poor choices, so I need to make EXTRA good choices to compensate for the poor choices in the past. That thought helps with deprivation thinking.

Today is tough because it's the distinguished professor reception which means my all time favorite--appetizers. However, I've been eating a lot of cheese lately, so hopefully at least the cheese won't seem so special to me.

Here's todays food:

Breakfast: 2 crepes, diet juice. NORMAL

Snack: cake. Thinking--good (I knew I didn't need cake, but was trying to act "normally" and had 1/2 a slice). Result: POOR

Snack: Grapes and cheese. Thinking GOOD (pre-planned and made at home so I could go heavy on the grapes and light on the cheese) Result: NORMAL

Lunch: 6 inch roast beef sub. and baked chips. NORMAL

Dinner: Have hopes of some control. Will eat banana just before going. Thinking: POOR--sure the banana is a good idea, but I get waaaaayyy too excited about stuff like this. I don't think thin people obsess as much as I do.