Back down to where I was before the holidays!

You all would be proud of me. I straightened up and lost five pounds last week! It’s about time, eh? Something about it being a new  year kind of gives me the kick in the butt that I needed.

David and I counted our calories each day last week. Since I have a whole bunch of free time at work I took some time to make a complete 7-day meal calendar for each of us. We just followed the menu exactly (well…..almost exactly) and we both lost 5lbs. David is actually down 38lbs total. He’s going to disappear on me soon.

This week we added calories to the menu - but not a whole lot. I need to lose three more pounds. THREE. Then I will finally reach my twenty pound lost goal. Geez – it only took me 6 months! David is only two pounds away from his second weight loss goal lol. Bastard.

Friday we dusted (literally) the exercise bike off and I’ve been using that for thirty minutes each day. Tomorrow we will officially be registering for the Color Run here in OKC in May. David is doing it, too. It will be a total of five miles. My poor legs need to start getting some muscle in them or I’m not going to make it past the first color booth.

My laptop has about a million things wrong with it right now so I’ll be blogging from work for awhile. Like I said, I have plenty of free time here. Thanks everyone for checking in on me and wish me luck this week!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

A new year has begun and I’m already feeling the need to eat healthier and exercise. It has nothing to do with resolutions though. I just ate way too much this last holiday week and my pants feel way too tight.

But hey, whatever works!

I’ve been bad these last few weeks though. I haven’t walked at all (although to be fair – it’s been snowy and icy) and I’ve eaten enough junk to become pre-diabetic. I threw caution to the wind, my friends, and have gained almost 6lbs back in the process.

I started the first day of 2013 at 201lbs. A little disappointing since I was below 200 for the last few months of 2012. I have no one to blame but myself though. And whoever invented chocolate.

Last night I went to bed with resolve and determination. I looked at ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of people who have lost weight (Google images – one of my favorite places on the internet!) and drifted off while making a mental grocery list of all the good food I was going to stock up on. I’ve prepared myself for a few hard days of constant hunger, cravings, and headaches. I need to be strict and get my hunger level back down to a normal level and it ain’t gonna be easy. Starting Sunday, David and I will be doing a calorie-restricted diet. After the first week of this, we will start adding calories until we’ve reached a good point of losing weight and eating. I don’t want to deprive our bodies of any essential vitamins and nutrients and we definitely don’t want to starve ourselves, so this will be a trial and error kind of thing.

What about Weight Watchers? We will go back to counting points sometime in the future, but right now it’s not drastic enough to get us the weight loss we want. I loved the fact that I could eat pizza, chocolate, etc, on WW, but I learned after a while that I have no limits with that kind of stuff. I need to try something that will keep me away from my favorite meals until I can learn to control my eating again.

Another motivation is the 5K I promised my friend I would do. Looks like we will be doing the Color Run in Tulsa on April 20^th. I can’t even run one mile right now, so yeah, I need to get my butt in gear. I’ve been commissioned to do a lot of paintings lately, which is awesome, but having free time to exercise seems almost impossible. I might need to start waking up earlier. Ugh.

So yeah, Caitrin ended the year on a bad note. But that doesn’t mean I need to screw things up for 2013. I can turn this around. It’s not too late. This can be my year of victory. J

Remember Me?

Alright. I’ve disappeared again. It doesn’t make for an exciting, riveting blog if the author never posts anything, does it? I’m not even sure I have valid reasons or if they’re just excuses. I feel like I’ve been busy though – that should count as something I think J

So, how is my diet, you ask? It’s stagnant. I gain two lbs, then lose two lbs. Back and forth, back and forth. I’ve basically been at the same weight for the last month and a half. Of course, the holidays are NOT helping. There are so many yummy Christmas goodies being passed out at work. It’s a wonder I haven’t gained all my weight back.

I’m doing well today though. I confided to David last night that I ate some junk food at work and after hearing him talk about all the things he has to reject all the time at his job, I started feeling  really really guilty. For instance, he got to work yesterday and his boss had given him a basket full of food. And of course it was junk. Brownies, cookies, full sized candy bars, sodas, and chips. You know what he did? He gave it away to his coworkers. Me? I would have eaten it. I have no will power – especially when it’s social stuff like xmas presents and treats. So this morning when I got here, I took the candy I hadn’t eaten yet and threw it away. He is trying so hard and he deserves to have a wife who not only supports him, but does her best to get herself healthy, too.

And now it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I had an egg salad sandwich with baked chips and pineapple in a cup about 3 hours ago and I’m starving. About 3 feet to my left is a huge basket filled with candy bars. 20 feet behind me in another cubicle is an Italian cream cake, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, and peppermint bark (my favorite). My co-workers have passed me numerous times, stuffing their faces and commenting about the good food. I’ve had about 5 sticks of gum and am working a bottle of water. This is not easy.

Tomorrow is our Christmas party. We’re doing it in the morning and they are supposed to be catering in breakfast. I doubt it will be fruit and yogurt parfaits. I think my strategy will be to eat my own big breakfast before I come in to work. Even then, it will be hard not to participate in our breakfast but I’m going to try.

So. Damn. Hard.

I'm still on planet Earth

I can’t say for sure that I’m ‘back’. But I’m here! That will have to count for now.

The day of our last weigh in for the first quarter went as I thought. I knew I wouldn’t make it to 193lbs. No expectations were met, for I didn’t have any – or so I thought. The next two weeks, I became really depressed. The thought that I missed my goal by a measly two pounds kept haunting me.

You know what I should have done? Sucked it up and lost the extra two pounds. Better late than never, right?

Instead I wallowed in self-pity. I came home and laid on the couch in a tv-induced coma til it was time for bed. I didn’t talk much at work. I didn’t want a big dinner with friends  for my birthday. I just didn’t care.

Ironically, I still kept up my jogging through all that. Go figure.

About a week before thanksgiving, I started getting lazy. I told myself it was because it got dark at 530 and because it was cold enough to make my teeth chatter, but honestly, I lost focus. I wanted to stay home and paint or play my video game instead of running circles around the neighborhood down the block. My famous motto came back full force – “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Well, it’s been two weeks and I have yet to jog even one mile.  My new excuse is that I don’t have enough time. Which is partially true. I’ve been working on a lot of commissioned art projects and it takes a lot of my time. But still – if I was honest to myself, I’d have to admit that realistically I have time for a 30-40 minute jog.

My eating habits are worse, but not horrible. In the past month I’ve kept track of my points maybe 5 times. I can’t pinpoint why I don’t want to track anymore. Is it having to write everything down? Is it too much work to prepare healthy meals now? Is it because I don’t want to write down all the Christmas candy I’ve been shoving in my mouth at work? Yes, yes, and yes. It’s more than that, though.

I’ve read a book called The Science of Dieting. The author really lays down the bare truths about sugars and fats and processed food. It hit home for me. However, as much as I would like to eat differently, I just don’t have the taste buds for it.  I went grocery shopping and bought nothing but organic, processed-free food. It was GROSS. Unless I lose my sense of taste, I don’t see myself ever being able to eat that way. But now I’m left with a problem.

See, on weight watchers, you eat a lot of low-fat, low-cal food. Which is great as far as weight loss goes. But the kicker is that in order to make these type of foods taste better, the manufacturers add a lot of sugar. And regular sugar I’m somewhat ok with. It’s the fake sugars like Equal, Nutrasweet, etc, that I don’t want in my body anymore. These replacement ‘sugars’ were all created on accident, in laboratories, with chemicals that would normally kill people. Even real sugar, off the shelf, is bad for us. By the time we buy it, it’s been stripped of all its nutrients and bleached and processed. That’s why our body freaks out when we eat it.

So this is my problem: Do I continue to eat low-fat/cal stuff and lose more weight, while allowing my body to suffer from extra sugar? Or do I buy stuff that’s fatty and calorie-rich, have a harder time losing weight, but not subjecting myself to chemicals and sweeteners that my body can’t handle?

A regular yogurt, for instance, is 4 points. 4 points is quite a bit. I normally eat 4 points for lunch. But a low-fat yogurt is only 1 point. Can you see the appeal?

So yeah, this is where I’m at. I want to lose more weight. I want to run. But I feel kind of stuck right now.

I have been going back and forth between 198lbs and 195. One week I gain, the next week I lose, only to gain it back next week. It’s been a battle.

David is down 33lbs lost. He’s doing great! You all don’t understand how awesome he is. He refuses to eat anything bad. I don’t know how he does it. They cater food in at work, and he has me make an extra sandwich for him so he has something else to eat. He won’t eat candy. He won’t cave in when I try and get him to do a pizza night. I would give anything to have the mindset and willpower that he has. He deserves to have lost so much weight.

I’m not quitting. I’m just kind of here – in diet limbo. I’m waiting for that “spark” that will push me to start trying really hard again. I have motivation but it’s not enough. I need a fire lit under my butt.

If anyone wants to offer money to me for losing more weight, I think that might do it J

Hey, it’s worth a try!

I'm still alive

I've taken a little break from blogging. Maybe one day i'll write about why but right now I just don't feel like talking about it. Keep checking back though. I will return soon :)

The results are in....

I tried harder this week than any other that I can think of, and I lost…..

One Pound.

So that makes my total weight loss for the first quarter seventeen pounds – just 3 pounds shy of my goal of twenty.

I know it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have waited til the end to step it up! But you know, I am still proud of myself. I’m no longer in the two hundred pound range and that means a lot to me. We celebrated last night with pizza, now my pants feel too tight lol. I guess we should have celebrated with fruit instead.

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that David lost four pounds so he has actually lost 28lbs all together. That’s eight pounds more than his goal! I’m so proud of him!

So today we start working towards our next twenty pounds. Well, technically, David only has 12lbs to go. I have twenty-three. So NOT fair! At least I have until January 22^nd to get rid of that weight. I’ve confided in a good friend at work about trying to lose weight, and she’s been doing really good about keeping me out of the candy box J. I’ll be jogging now instead of walking so there should be more calories burned with that. This week it’s in the eighties though – not too happy about that. But I’ll suffer through it.

Yesterday was hard. I won’t lie. I cried after we weighed ourselves. Poor David, lol. But he really is proud of me and he knows how hard it is for me to lose weight. When I woke up this  morning, I felt a lot better about things. I think these next few months will be harder though. I will have to blog more, so that I can vent more, and trudge on through this diet!

5 Days Left

Waiting until the last week of my weight-loss ‘program’ to shed these unwanted pounds wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Friday is food day at work. The smell alone will make me salivate. Saturday I have a wedding to go to and you know what that means: Wedding Cake.

This is a good week to jog though. 60’s and 70’s each day with no rain. I’ve even asked for running shoes for my birthday (which is 3 weeks away). I feel like I’m getting better each day and I haven’t caused serious injury to myself yet so I may as well keep going. I want to get to the point where I can jog the entire 3 miles without stopping. This way, if I ever have to run from the police, I’ll at least have a fighting chance. 

The hardest part of all this honestly is just being at work. Most of my days are slow and normally I would pass the time by snacking. (I wonder how I got this fat? Haha). Now I just sit here. Occasionally I get up for a glass of water. I watch everyone bring in fast food and eat it at their desks. At least once a day they will stop in front of my cubicle and grab some chocolate out of the Halloween treasure chest that they put in our walkway. And I just sit here. I’ve found some solace in hot chocolate, but even that I have to be careful with.

I didn’t realize how much I ate until I’ve made myself refrain from it. I always had  snacks in my drawers or in the breakroom. Now I have a jar of peanut butter and a bunch of water flavor packets. It’s kind of depressing. Food makes things funner.

On the plus side, Gertrude’s last day is this Friday. I’ll work her area for a while until they find a replacement so that will keep me busy and less likely to snack. No one’s noticed my 16lb weight loss yet, but that’s ok. I think I probably just look less squishy but it’s probably hard for others to put their finger on that. I feel really good and that’s all tha t matters.

193. That is the magic number that I need to see Sunday. I will have finished my first goal, gotten a prize for losing 20lbs, and I’ll be at a weight that I haven’t been in for over 3 years. To be honest, I haven’t been under 190 in over 5 years so this might be a big breakthrough for me, assuming I am able to keep going with this. I don’t doubt my will, but I do doubt my bodies’ ability to do what I ask of it. haha.

5 more days!