I had one goal today: to avoid the candy bowl at work. We keep it in the file cabinet so not everyone that walks by can dig their greedy hands into it. I think each of us in my department open that drawer about twice a day and take a piece or two. It's part of my routine now. Last week (the first week of my so called life-altering diet) I still had two pieces a day. I didn't count the points either (gasp!). Why? Because the candy was small, and they were three musketeer bars - known for their light fluffy filling and their low-fat goodness. Or that's what I kept telling myself. But I know it was wrong. If I put it in my mouth, I have to record the points. That's how it works.
So all day long I avoided the filing cabinet. I heard it open and shut numerous times - but for once it wasn't me. I'm pretty proud of myself. It might seem a small thing, but if you knew how much I love chocolate, you'd be super proud of me.
Today was the first day I didn't stuff my face with chocolate. It was also the first time I made chicken tacos. And I have to say - they ROCKED. I'd attach a recipe, but it's pretty basic. Grilled chicken with lots of cajun spices, tortilla shells, cheese, sour cream, and hot sauce. I'm sure you're impressed.
It's 8 now. I'm going to finish watching How I Met Your Mother, and then I'm doing my exercise bike for 30 minutes. It's going to be Legen - wait for it - dary!
Monday, July 30, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Is it going to work this time?
Out of all the diets that I've tried, there's only one that truly worked. It was slow-going, tedious, and a lot of work, but all in all it gave me the best weight loss and I kept the weight off a lot longer than I usually do. What is this magic diet I speak of? Weight watchers!
You need to understand, I'm not a member anymore. I'm not paying for classes or meetings or website privileges. A few years ago I joined WW at work. If I completed the 6 week course, my job would reimburse me half of what I paid. At the time I was up to 212 so I was desperate for anything really. And I'm cheap so that was appealing too. After the meetings were over, I had lost 20lbs. Not a huge number, but more than other time I've tried to lose weight. I've tried it a few times since, but all that calculating and writing things down SUCKED. I'm a lazy dieter. I don't want to put much effort into it. Which is why it probably never works haha.
Luckily for me, I still have my WW calculator. What's funny is the program has changed and the way I come up with my points now isn't even correct anymore. But it worked before, so I'll take a chance that it can work again. My husband and I both need to lose weight. WW is the only thing I can think of that might give us a passing chance. Here's the thing with the program, in case you know nothing about it - you can actually eat bad food once in awhile! Not a lot of it, but you are allowed extra points, and if you want to use it for a few slices of pizza, or, in my case, a 6 pack of Hornsby Beer, go right ahead. Can you see it's appeal? Of course you can!
Don't make the mistake of thinking it's easy though. It's still a diet. We started on Sunday, exactly 7 days ago, and my stomach is still rumbling. The damn thing doesn't understand that the food I'm giving it is the correct portion size. It yells at me constantly! My husband is always complaining that he's hungry. And honestly, we're not starving ourselves. We're eating the portions that normal people eat. Our bodies just don't get it yet.
There's a lot of work involved with losing weight. I need to keep us accountable but motivated. It's silly - you think getting thin would be motivation enough, but it's hard when you have a husband that's still incredibly attracted to you and tells you you're beautiful every day and still wants to get it on ALL THE TIME. haha. I don't always feel like I need to change! It's only when I see the photos that I realize how bad I've gotten. Plus, I've gained 75lbs since we met (10 years ago) and I know deep inside he'd love to see that girl again. So anyways, here's what I've done to help us stay on course this time:
-Each of us have a notebook. Every day I write down everything we eat, the point values, and what bonus points we have left, if any.
-Once a week we weigh ourselves. Sunday actually. Then we fill in the pounds lost on this spiffy thermometer measuring, uh, thing that I made:
And..... it's sideways. Once I get this blogging thing down, I'll get better at that.
- When we've reached 20lbs lost (which is our first goal), we get rewarded! We'll draw a prize from a bowl. It's stuff like $20 at Hobby Lobby, or Full Body Massage. Just a little something. We'll increase the prizes for the next goal of 40!
-We're taking measurements of our bodies monthly to see if we're losing any inches. That's just for fun. Oh, and don't forget the monthly before and after pictures. I hope those will steadily improve.
This isn't all either. It takes me twice as long to grocery shop since I'm having to calculate points and compare products. And then, when I get home, it takes me twice as long to put all the food away because I have to calculate the points and write them on the packages. It makes it much easier for later on. Any time I prepare a meal, I have to consult both of our food journals to see exactly how much we both can have. And you always need a few points left over for dessert! So as you can see, this is WORK. But I'm giving this diet a lot of attention and details because we need it to work. If by this time next year, I'm down to 150, then all this time and effort I'm putting into this will be worth it. That's what I keep telling myself anyways.
And if you can tell from my horrible sideways picture, we've lost weight our first week! I've lost 3lbs and David has lost 4. We're doing excellent with eating right but not so much with the exercising. In our defense, it's 108 degrees outside. Just walking out to the car can give us heat stroke. We live in an apartment so we've gone swimming a few times. We have an exercise bike too. I always thought that using one of those would be easy, but no one ever tells you how much they make your ass hurt.
I'm making a healthy lasagna for dinner tonight. I'll post the recipe and try to link it later.
I'm so hungry!!!!
You need to understand, I'm not a member anymore. I'm not paying for classes or meetings or website privileges. A few years ago I joined WW at work. If I completed the 6 week course, my job would reimburse me half of what I paid. At the time I was up to 212 so I was desperate for anything really. And I'm cheap so that was appealing too. After the meetings were over, I had lost 20lbs. Not a huge number, but more than other time I've tried to lose weight. I've tried it a few times since, but all that calculating and writing things down SUCKED. I'm a lazy dieter. I don't want to put much effort into it. Which is why it probably never works haha.
Luckily for me, I still have my WW calculator. What's funny is the program has changed and the way I come up with my points now isn't even correct anymore. But it worked before, so I'll take a chance that it can work again. My husband and I both need to lose weight. WW is the only thing I can think of that might give us a passing chance. Here's the thing with the program, in case you know nothing about it - you can actually eat bad food once in awhile! Not a lot of it, but you are allowed extra points, and if you want to use it for a few slices of pizza, or, in my case, a 6 pack of Hornsby Beer, go right ahead. Can you see it's appeal? Of course you can!
Don't make the mistake of thinking it's easy though. It's still a diet. We started on Sunday, exactly 7 days ago, and my stomach is still rumbling. The damn thing doesn't understand that the food I'm giving it is the correct portion size. It yells at me constantly! My husband is always complaining that he's hungry. And honestly, we're not starving ourselves. We're eating the portions that normal people eat. Our bodies just don't get it yet.
There's a lot of work involved with losing weight. I need to keep us accountable but motivated. It's silly - you think getting thin would be motivation enough, but it's hard when you have a husband that's still incredibly attracted to you and tells you you're beautiful every day and still wants to get it on ALL THE TIME. haha. I don't always feel like I need to change! It's only when I see the photos that I realize how bad I've gotten. Plus, I've gained 75lbs since we met (10 years ago) and I know deep inside he'd love to see that girl again. So anyways, here's what I've done to help us stay on course this time:
-Each of us have a notebook. Every day I write down everything we eat, the point values, and what bonus points we have left, if any.
-Once a week we weigh ourselves. Sunday actually. Then we fill in the pounds lost on this spiffy thermometer measuring, uh, thing that I made:
- When we've reached 20lbs lost (which is our first goal), we get rewarded! We'll draw a prize from a bowl. It's stuff like $20 at Hobby Lobby, or Full Body Massage. Just a little something. We'll increase the prizes for the next goal of 40!
-We're taking measurements of our bodies monthly to see if we're losing any inches. That's just for fun. Oh, and don't forget the monthly before and after pictures. I hope those will steadily improve.
This isn't all either. It takes me twice as long to grocery shop since I'm having to calculate points and compare products. And then, when I get home, it takes me twice as long to put all the food away because I have to calculate the points and write them on the packages. It makes it much easier for later on. Any time I prepare a meal, I have to consult both of our food journals to see exactly how much we both can have. And you always need a few points left over for dessert! So as you can see, this is WORK. But I'm giving this diet a lot of attention and details because we need it to work. If by this time next year, I'm down to 150, then all this time and effort I'm putting into this will be worth it. That's what I keep telling myself anyways.
And if you can tell from my horrible sideways picture, we've lost weight our first week! I've lost 3lbs and David has lost 4. We're doing excellent with eating right but not so much with the exercising. In our defense, it's 108 degrees outside. Just walking out to the car can give us heat stroke. We live in an apartment so we've gone swimming a few times. We have an exercise bike too. I always thought that using one of those would be easy, but no one ever tells you how much they make your ass hurt.
I'm making a healthy lasagna for dinner tonight. I'll post the recipe and try to link it later.
I'm so hungry!!!!
Here I go again....
Exactly one week ago, I started my very last diet. I'm at that point where it's either do or die. You might think that's a little over-dramatic. I'm only 31. I'm not even obese. I am, however, 5'2 and there's 210lbs on this tiny frame of mine. If I don't get the balls to do something now, my life is going to start spinning out of control. Or continue to spin out of control, I guess I should say.
I hope whoever is reading this is fat, too. That's why I started these ramblings of mine. You see, lately I've been searching for inspiration. I wanted to find a blog or a book and read someones story about how they conquered their obesity and how it was the hardest thing they've ever done in their life. Because, let's be real, dieting is HARD. I've gone to the library and checked out books. I've googled the heck out of "inspirational dieting stories", and I have yet to come across someone who truly had a challenge with losing weight. Half of the stories ended up with the narrator getting gastric bypass and ending up a third of their original size. You know what?
If my stomach was reduced to a size of an egg, I'd be way less hungry too.
I'm not knocking the surgery. Some people truly need to have it. I've even looked into it and guess what? I don't weigh enough. Haha. The irony is if I just went on an eating binge and ate anything I wanted and gained maybe 30 more pounds, then my BMI would be high enough to qualify. It was almost tempting, let me tell you. But I don't want to get bigger. I'm already at my highest weight and I feel like an offspring of that big marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. So I kept on looking. I thought maybe if I found someone like me who overcame their weight problem, then it would give me hope. It's possible I just didn't look hard enough, or didn't enter the right search words into Google, but it seems that all the success stories I've read have only talked about the end result. No one talks about the struggles. The times they failed. The secret stash of candy they still dug into when no one was looking. The times they went 3 days without exercising just because they didn't feel like it.
I want to know that I'm not the only one who has tried (and failed) at dieting hundreds of times. I can't be the only one who, after 7 days of dieting, is still starving and craving every food imaginable. It's not easy. It's not fun. I don't love eating healthier. I want pizza, and Ben and Jerry's Phish Food, and chocolate milk! I refuse to eat a homemade pizza made with a cauliflower crust and goat cheese (seriously - who EATS that?). Normal people can't honestly be content with zucchini fries and veggie burgers.
It doesn't help that I'm super picky either. I hate most vegetables. I like maybe half the fruits out there. Wheat products? Forget it. I'd rather starve. Nuts? Gross. Meat? Usually only if I prepare it and even then it's hard for me to swallow without gagging. I love cheese and milk and carbs and chocolate! So dieting for me is pretty much finding a way to eat fatty foods while still losing weight. Not exactly a walk in a park.
Anyways, I've decided to stop looking and just create my own story. Maybe others will read this. Maybe not. But I hope at least a few people do. People, like me, that have been searching for someone who is in the same crappy place in life and who doesn't have the answer as to how to fix all of it but who, none the less, is giving it a try. I'm not the most open person. I'm not even sure I want to tell my friends about this blog, mainly because I try to avoid the obvious weight problem that I have and just pretend I'm skinny like everyone else. But I invite you all to read about my journey. I will be honest, brutal, explicit, and sometimes even funny. I'll share with you my struggles with losing weight and hope that anyone reading this will feel less alone in their journey to weight loss as well.
Please enjoy the adventures of a picky fat girl. :)
I hope whoever is reading this is fat, too. That's why I started these ramblings of mine. You see, lately I've been searching for inspiration. I wanted to find a blog or a book and read someones story about how they conquered their obesity and how it was the hardest thing they've ever done in their life. Because, let's be real, dieting is HARD. I've gone to the library and checked out books. I've googled the heck out of "inspirational dieting stories", and I have yet to come across someone who truly had a challenge with losing weight. Half of the stories ended up with the narrator getting gastric bypass and ending up a third of their original size. You know what?
If my stomach was reduced to a size of an egg, I'd be way less hungry too.
I'm not knocking the surgery. Some people truly need to have it. I've even looked into it and guess what? I don't weigh enough. Haha. The irony is if I just went on an eating binge and ate anything I wanted and gained maybe 30 more pounds, then my BMI would be high enough to qualify. It was almost tempting, let me tell you. But I don't want to get bigger. I'm already at my highest weight and I feel like an offspring of that big marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. So I kept on looking. I thought maybe if I found someone like me who overcame their weight problem, then it would give me hope. It's possible I just didn't look hard enough, or didn't enter the right search words into Google, but it seems that all the success stories I've read have only talked about the end result. No one talks about the struggles. The times they failed. The secret stash of candy they still dug into when no one was looking. The times they went 3 days without exercising just because they didn't feel like it.
I want to know that I'm not the only one who has tried (and failed) at dieting hundreds of times. I can't be the only one who, after 7 days of dieting, is still starving and craving every food imaginable. It's not easy. It's not fun. I don't love eating healthier. I want pizza, and Ben and Jerry's Phish Food, and chocolate milk! I refuse to eat a homemade pizza made with a cauliflower crust and goat cheese (seriously - who EATS that?). Normal people can't honestly be content with zucchini fries and veggie burgers.
It doesn't help that I'm super picky either. I hate most vegetables. I like maybe half the fruits out there. Wheat products? Forget it. I'd rather starve. Nuts? Gross. Meat? Usually only if I prepare it and even then it's hard for me to swallow without gagging. I love cheese and milk and carbs and chocolate! So dieting for me is pretty much finding a way to eat fatty foods while still losing weight. Not exactly a walk in a park.
Anyways, I've decided to stop looking and just create my own story. Maybe others will read this. Maybe not. But I hope at least a few people do. People, like me, that have been searching for someone who is in the same crappy place in life and who doesn't have the answer as to how to fix all of it but who, none the less, is giving it a try. I'm not the most open person. I'm not even sure I want to tell my friends about this blog, mainly because I try to avoid the obvious weight problem that I have and just pretend I'm skinny like everyone else. But I invite you all to read about my journey. I will be honest, brutal, explicit, and sometimes even funny. I'll share with you my struggles with losing weight and hope that anyone reading this will feel less alone in their journey to weight loss as well.
Please enjoy the adventures of a picky fat girl. :)
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