What is this feeling in the pit of my stomach....hunger?

The last two days I've really cut back on my food intake. It's not like I'm starving myself. I'm just eating smaller portions, and I cut out all the fake ice cream (again!). Fake ice cream being Weight Watchers ice cream bars, sugar-free crap and of course, Skinny Cows (and there's nothing "skinny" about those things for me since I can't eat just one).

With the rush of the holiday, it's been easy to skip meals. It's also been stupid and not really on purpose. It just happened that I missed lunch two days in a row these last two days, and I didn't make up for it with late night eating. I know, that's a real shocker.

As a result of actually feeling hungry, I tossed and turned most of last night, but I refused to give in to getting up for a snack at 2 a.m. I'm trying to break that habit (again!) to stop eating in the middle of the night. One innocent snack can turned into a five-course meal with dessert, and totally ruin a perfect day of eating and exercising.

When I finally got up at 6 a.m. today, I was famished. I made my breakfast. It was a little different than what I usually have:  one egg, 1/4 cup 2% cheese, 1/3 cup chopped cherry tomatoes, and 4 ounces of shrimp (we're out of Canadian bacon), and two Tablespoons of cocktail sauce (not something I ever have with breakfast). I heated this up and then put the mixture on a sandwich thin (because we're out of real bread). It was surprisingly very tasty and filling.

The problem, I put it in the Weight Watchers eTools online...it's a freaking 11 Points! Holy crap! 406 calories, about 100 more than what I usually have with the Canadian bacon breakfast, and five Points higher than my normal six point breakfast. Lesson learned:  put my food in eTools before I eat it. I probably would have had something different if I had done this, and definitely lower in Points.

By 11 a.m. I was starving again. I just had a banana and 4 oz. Activia fat-free vanilla yogurt, along with a cup of my new favorite tea (Good Earth Original, a yummy naturally sweet cinnamon tea). 160 calories or 2 Weight Watcher Points. I feel okay now, still a little hungry but I can live with it. I'm trying to suck down as much water as possible to keep the hunger pains away. It's not working as well as it usually does.

Calorie count so far today: 566
Points: 13

It's only 1 p.m. I'm not sure why this seems a lot tougher today than I remember. Maybe because I'm really focusing and doing what it takes to ignore these hunger pains. Is it real hunger I wonder, or is it all in my head? Either way, I don't like it but I can live through it.

Plans for the day, next up is the gym. My husband wants to go with me (he's off work toay). There's always the debate of taking two cars since he will only do one hour, that's his personal limit for the gym. I prefer one and half hours when I have time. We'll see.

Then it's home to wrap presents and make a chicken barley soup recipe I found in one of my old Jane Brody cookbooks. It's a cookbook I bought about 15 years ago during my vegetarian, organic, health food phase (1995-1997). I remember I bought it because it had a lot of vegetarian recipes in it.

I never made the soup but it sounds really good. About five years ago I gave away most of my cookbooks. I use to be a cookbook fanatic. I had about 50 of them. I decided to downsize and only kept five of my favorite cookbooks since I get most of my recipes online (of course, I've been adding Weight Watcher cookbooks, which I rarely use...most recipes I get from eTools).

Jane Brody was the top of the list as a keeper cookbook. Funny thing, I weighed 127 pounds when I was cooking from this cookbook and there isn't any nutritional information. They're very healthy, low-fat and delicious. I'm going to put all the ingredients into the WW recipe builder but I suspect it'll be about six or seven Points a serving. Of course, my estimates are off on everything these days with the new WW plan so we'll see how off I am on this one.

I hope everyone is enjoying their day. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I can't believe how time is flying. 2011 is right around the corner. If nothing else, I'm going to be under my January 1, 2010 weight of 177 by January 1, 2011.  Whatever it takes, I have to at least to that for myself.

God watches out for fools

My girlfriend says this a lot, that God watches out for fools, referring to herself when she does something really stupid. Today, I was a fool.

I did something so stupid I hesitated to even write about it. I didn't even tell my husband (and I'm not going to). It did wake me up and make me realize I really need to pay more attention to my actions.

I had one last trip to the mall today, for two gifts I didn't get on Tuesday (because the crowds were making me insane). My plan for the day was the gym this morning, then home and a shower before heading off to the mall for shopping and home before 2 p.m.

I had to call my niece this morning to let her know what time I'll be arriving in Fairbanks on Sunday. I love my niece. She's funny, witty, and loves to talk. As I sat in my car in the gym parking lot for an hour talking to her, I realized it was 9:30 a.m. I thought it best to head off to the mall and go to the gym later (and I did make it there this afternoon). Otherwise I'd get caught up in the early afternoon shopping madness.

Off I went, bluetooth stuck in my ear, listening to my niece talk about the challenges of raising three boys. I don't normally drive and talk on the phone. I personally don't think it's safe, at least not for me. It's very distracting and after a few near accidents I rarely do it anymore, but my niece really wanted to talk.

When I pulled into the mall parking garage my niece was still chatting. I love her to pieces but she does like to talk. I sat in my car for another 15 minutes, my headlights turned off, talking and laughing with her over the antics of her boys. Finally we said goodbye, and I headed into the mall.

After two hours (part of it spent trying to find the second Sephora in the mall--there are two of them on the opposite ends of the mall), I headed back to my car. I knew the general vicinity of where I parked but I didn't see my car at first. So I pulled out my key fob (which contains the key that I never use) and hit the unlock button so I could hear the location of my car. Nothing but silence.

When I'd pulled into the garage at about 10 a.m. the garage was partly empty. It was totally full at noon. Then I spotted my car. Practically right in front of me. I wondered why it didn't beep when I hit the unlock button on the key fob. I tried it again while looking at it. Silence. No lights. Weird.

As I got closer to my car I hit the trunk unlock button. Nothing. Dang! The battery must be dead on the key fob. That had never happened before but the car is almost two years old. I'd never stuck the key fob in the charger on the dash so maybe it was time.

As I got next to my car I pushed the button on the door handle to open it. It's a Nissan with a button start on the ignition and a button on the handle to unlock it. I usually don't even use the key fob except to open the trunk (or find it in a parking lot if I'm lost). As long as I have the key fob on me (usually in my purse), it opens with the press of the button on the door. The door didn't make it's normal beep-beep noise when it unlocks. It opened easily meaning I hadn't locked my car. No big deal, there wasn't anything in it. Even though I always lock it. Guess I was distracted talking on the phone when I got out of my car.

Then I got in my car. It felt like it was 100 degrees inside. This is Seattle, about 45 degrees today and it was an unheated garage. Then I realized what I'd done. I had left my car running, the heater going full blast, unlocked, in a crowded mall parking garage for two hours, three days before Christmas. Oh.My.God.

That is just about one of the stupidest stunts I've ever pulled. It's a miracle my car wasn't stolen. People steal locked cars that aren't running. I was horrified I could do something so incredibly irresponsible. I know nothing happened. The car was safe, I was safe (no one hiding in the back seat), so no harm no foul, right?

What does this long, stupid story have to do with weight loss?

To be honest, this incident sort of scared me silly. As I was driving home, I started thinking about how I'm so easily distracted by life. Look Diana, shiny object!

I do the same thing with my weight loss. For months I've been floating along, watching others achieve success with their weight loss goals, while I drift along, up a few pounds down a few, then up a few more, until I managed to end up in the high 170's (177.6 this morning). I don't like this at all, and I'm not happy with myself.

After all these years of me gaining/losing/gaining weight you would think I could have this figured out by now. There is one thing I do know, I have to focus on my weight loss 100%. Yes, I have to work at a sometimes stressful job. I love to use that as an excuse, but seriously, it's just an excuse, and a pretty sorry one at that. Everyone has to work and everyone has stress in their life, yet a lot of you still manage to lose weight.

Then I was sick. Then it was Christmas week. I wonder what's next, a vacation to visit family in Alaska? It's always something with me, some distraction that I let pull me away from what I really need to be doing, focusing on losing weight. It requires 100% of my focus. No more shiny objects.

It's time to end the excuses for not losing weight. If I really want this (and I do) I need to move forward. I have to work at it because weight loss doesn't just happen to me while I'm doing other stuff. I need to totally focus on it. Eye on the prize.  I need to stop being a fool.

So much happier today!

Yesterday was not my best day. I'm normally a pretty happy person. Even if I get down and depressed, I usually get over it pretty fast. Yesterday was not normal.

Today I woke up in a happy mood. Even after finding the still undecorated tree, with the exception of lights and the angel topper, laying on it's side on the floor. The angel was pulled off the top and being used as a kitten chew toy. Have I mentioned we have two six-month old kittens and the world is their oyster? If it's not nailed down (well, even it it is), it's their play thing. One of them even had some of the feathers from the angel's wings stuck in her whiskers. I couldn't help but laugh. This certainly isn't a Martha Stewart home.

I'm also thrilled I got my hair back to it's original state today. After three hours with my colorist and hair stylist, I look normal again. In the downer post that I deleted yesterday I mentioned I went to my best friend's niece, a hair stylist, to get a very cheap color and cut (huge mistake). It turned out to be the worst color and cut of my life. 

I'm just not a totally bleached blond kind of gal. Every time I looked in the mirror I was horrified by my hair. The color was so bright and so blond that I felt like I needed sunglasses to even look at it. That was in front, the back was even a worse mess with white blond streaks against my natural dark blond hair.

After a lot of "corrective" coloring work which included low-lights, high-lights and some all over color, I don't look like a bleached blond bimbo anymore. My stylist took off an inch of length and it feels so much healthier. The layers, well,  there wasn't much she could do about them other than trim them up, but at least they look like the layers were professionally added and I didn't take the scissors to my hair myself. My bangs are back to normal too.

I'm so much happier with my hair now. It's a little sad that so much of my identity is wrapped up in my hair. It seems rather shallow. I can't help it, that's just how I am about my hair. I sort of wish I had this same sort of obsession about my body. Maybe I'd be thin and totally in shape if I did (and even more shallow than I am now).

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The gym
I also attribute my much happier mood today to the gym. I didn't go yesterday until 8pm, then when I got there my iPod was dead so I didn't even stay. When I got home and told my husband, his response was, well, you could have worked out anyway, without the iPod. Ummm, no, I can't. I've tried that before when the iPod was dead and it was pure torture without my music.

This morning was a great workout with an hour of hard cardio. 25 minutes of it was on the treadmill, with an incline of 15 at 4mph, or an incline 15 at 5mph. 35 minutes on the crossramp. It set my mood for the entire day...happy!

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The food

I was actually too busy to eat today until about 6 p.m. Even after my workout this morning I only had a banana, then I had to rush to my hair appointment, then I shopped until I dropped (I'm almost done!). I know this isn't healthy, and it's not my normal.

Dinner was a piece of flank steak and a big green salad with some yummy low-cal yogurt dressing I discovered. It's Marie's Yogurt Dressing, in the cooler by the produce, half the fat and half the calories of regular dressing. I bought the blue cheese (although there weren't any blue cheese chunks in it...of course not). It was actually really good for store bought dressing.

Tomorrow is an early Weight Watchers meeting. My normal day is Saturday, but that's Christmas, so I'm going to my regular leader tomorrow for my weighin and meeting. Then more shopping.

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Oh my gosh...on Dr. Phil they just said that a one-pound box of candy is about 10,000 calories. I use to eat a one-pound box of Sees candy at Christmas, when I was on my binges (and yes, in one day!). Dr. Phil has a couple on the show that always gains about 35-50 pounds each, each year during the holidays. Dr. Phil is pushing a book, something about losing 15 pounds in 17 days (17daydiet.com). And no, I'm not buying the book. :)

Oh - you'll love this - they (Dr. Phil and the author of the 17 day diet book) both just said that new scientific evidence proves that taking off weight fast doesn't mean you'll regain the weight fast. It's contrary to what everyone has thought all these years. Interesting.

Found it!

Found the joy!

First, I'm really sorry about that awful post I wrote earlier today. I'm not sure where that came from or why I was so angry. I just re-read it and deleted it. Hopefully not too many people read it.

After I put up the Christmas tree, sans decorations (my husband will help with that tonight), I decided to go Christmas shopping. After visiting the mall and two other stores, I came home empty handed. The stores are packed with shoppers. The lines were incredibly long, so I gave up, not one single gift was purchased. I had a few in my hands but when I saw the lines, I knew it could wait.

As I was driving home, listening to Silent Night being sung by Bing Crosby on the radio it occurred to me, what is all the fuss about? Why am I all stressed out? I'm not Martha Stewart, and I'm not going to have the perfectly decorated tree. The relatives in other states aren't going to get their gifts on time and they probably aren't going to get the perfect gift from us either (at the rate I'm going, they'll be lucky to get a card).

When I pulled into our driveway I could see the tree in the front winter. I left the lights on it turned on and it looked so pretty. Festive and happy. It made me smile.

It's Christmas. I'm going to relax, stop stressing about stupid stuff, and just enjoy my time off.

Merry Christmas!   <---said without sarcasm. :)

Returning to the land of the living

The past week
It was a very bad week. My cold that started on Monday knocked me flat for almost six days. I basically became a bed person. I was living on NyQuil, and totally not paying attention to what I was eating.

Of course, I didn't see the inside of the gym or any form of exercise the entire time. Six days of no exercise. That's the longest I've gone in almost three years without getting some form of exercise.

I also had major issues with drinking water. My throat was so sore that swallowing was extremely painful. The only beverage I could drink without discomfort was hot tea.

A new week
This morning I woke up and was able to breathe, my sinus headache was gone, and my sore throat is only sore from coughing, a huge improvement. And when I cough, it doesn't feel like chunks of my lungs are being ripped out. I feel human and normal and alive. It is a wonderful feeling.

The damage from six days of not paying attention to what I was eating:  a five-pound gain. From 177 to 182. Yikes!

Today I'm back on the straight and narrow. I've eaten very healthy today, but I'm under my Points. I've had 24 Points and should have had 29 (and only two fruits). For some bizarre reason I'm just not hungry. Perhaps stuffing my face for six days has something to do with it. I don't believe in eating when you're not hungry. As someone who is always hungry, I'll take advantage of this while I can. I'm sure it won't last.

I made it to they gym this afternoon. I was really anxious to get back. It was difficult with a lot of burning in my lungs, but I managed 15 minutes on the crosstrainer for my warmup, 30 minutes on the StairMaster (which just about killed me!), and a good upper body strength workout for 40 minutes. It was hard, and it hurt, especially my lungs, but it felt great to be exercising again.

What I learned
I learned something about myself this week. For several years I've said that I could easily become one of the super obese, weighing in excess of 500 pounds and becoming a bed person. I was almost halfway there at 240 pounds.

I have major food issues, and I thought my compulsion with food could overtake me at any time. I would be one of those people that would never leave my home. I'd be in the news when I died and they had to cut down the walls of my home to get me out.

I realize these are horrible thoughts and no one in their right mind would think this could really happen to them. Whether or not I'm in my right mind is always up for debate, but I really did believe this about myself. I knew if I let my guard down, that is exactly how I'd wind up.

Today, while I was on the StairMaster and my lungs felt like they were on fire, I thought that it's probably unlikely that I will let myself get totally out of control with food for any length of time. I'm not saying that it couldn't happen, but I am saying that if it's within my power, I won't let it happen. I like feeling alive.

Down with a cold...Merry Christmas to me

I've had a sore throat for four days, with a few sneezes here and there, so I thought maybe it was an allergy to something. Well, it turns out I was coming down with a nasty cold. Today I have it full force and it is not fun.

Maybe that's why I've been so tired these last few days. Yesterday I forced myself to clean the house, top to bottom, to prepare for putting up the Christmas decorations. It was a miserable day. Between coughing and sneezing I managed to get the hardwood floors sparkling, all the clutter cleared away to make room for Christmas clutter, then by 7pm I literally fell into bed. I was exhausted.

There's still not a single Christmas decoration up, instead we have bare spaces everywhere. It sort of looks like no one lives here. I kind of like that look.

I was super annoyed last night when I discovered we were out of NyQuil. Not totally out, there was about a teaspoon left in the bottle. Then I remembered my husband had a bad cold a few months ago and lived on NyQuil for about three days. He never mentioned we needed to pick up some more. I still slept twelve hours, even without the NyQuil.

Plans for today are to make some chicken noodle soup, a Weight Watcher recipe. Next I'll watch movies in bed and maybe, if I'm up to it, write my third Christmas card (I wrote a second one yesterday).

Yes, I'm really moving along on this Christmas thing. My best friend that is also on vacation at home this week and is also down with a cold, and who loves Christmas like no one you know, told me yesterday maybe she could just sleep through Christmas this year. She said "it'll be over in two weeks, and I could easily sleep for two weeks, then it would be all over". Talk about two Scrooges!

No gym yesterday, but I was working up a sweat from cleaning house (or maybe that was a fever). No gym today either. I sort of hurt everywhere, and I don't really feel like working out. Maybe tomorrow.

24 Days

I'm on vacation from work, 24 glorious days. Days of doing what I want, when I want and how I want. Twenty four days of having total control of my life. I could get use to living like this.

I don't have any plans for this time, just time at home, relaxing, taking it easy. Some of my coworkers consider this a waste of vacation time. I consider it something I really needed for myself. Some quiet time .

The problem is that I feel like I'm wasting time. I'm four days into my vacation and although I'm loving doing nothing, I still have things I need to do, and for some reason, I'm not doing them.

Christmas shopping, Christmas cards and decorating the house are at the top of my list. Yet each day I tell myself I don't feel like it today, maybe tomorrow. My husband says it's post-traumatic stress from months of long hours at work, and that I'm tired from trying to meet what seemed like impossible deadlines. He keeps telling me I deserve a break.

Maybe he's right, or maybe I'm just lazy. Regardless, I've decided to set a schedule for myself tomorrow. A flexible one, but one where I have to get at least a few things done. I wrote out one Christmas card today. That was my big accomplishment (and the gym, always the gym).

It also occurred to me this would be a great time to do the Twenty Day experiment. I've been following Roxie doing it and it sounds sort of fun. It just happens I have 20 days left of my vacation, a perfect time to do this experiment.

Exercise and Food
I've rediscovered Pomegranates. They're at the peak right now, and I absolutely love them. They keep my hands busy for a good 45 minutes, eating them one arils (juice/seed sacs) at a time.

The only issue I'm having with them is that Weight Watchers now has the zero Points for fruits rule. So that makes Pomegranates, well, zero Points. One big Pomegranate (4" in diameter) is 234 calories. I know these are healthy calories, but still, they are calories.

Just for fun I entered the nutritional information (fat 3.4, protein 4.7, carbs  52.7 and fiber 11.3) into the PointsPlus calculator online and the Pomegranate (if fruit had Points) would be 6 Points. I know this isn't how the new plan works, and I'm not suppose to think of fruit having Points, but you know what I'm thinking. I could gain weight on Pomegranates if I ate enough of them.

Exercise was good today. 10 minutes on the crosstrainer for my warmup and then a hard push on the StairMaster for 30 minutes. There was an old guy on the one next to me and I think we were having a competition. He looked like he was about 70 and he was really going to town, taking two steps to my one (and my average step rate is 67 steps per minute). Although he was leaning heavily on the front railing (a no-no to proper form on the StairMaster). I also got in 40 minutes of weight lifting, upper body.

Tomorrow...Day One of Twenty.