Divine Intervention and a Day of Rest

I feel like God has been slapping food out of my hand for the past week.  The first instance was on Friday, I picked up some food on my way home (salad and falafel), and decided to eat my falafel while driving.  This sounds like a fat move, but I was really hungry, and it would have been soggy and less delicious once I got home.  At least this is what I told myself as I was trying to pry one loose from the stupid salad packaging while sitting at a red light.  The light turned green, I was stuffing a falafel in my face, with the next one in my hand, and I started to choke, just a little.  And then I could feel that piece of falafel on the edge of my throat and I couldn’t take a big breath in without fear of inhaling falafel.  As I was coughing for my life, I thought oh what will the headline be? “Falafel choking victim crashes into Shotgun Willies, saved by stripper”…or something like that. While I was grateful to not crash while choking on falafel, I still mourned the loss of the crushed falafel on the floor of my car.

The second incident involved an attempt at making brownies, struggling with opening the plastic bag of mix and then *poof*, brownie mix everywhere.  I tried to fix it, but they turned out weird, and I was sad.

The third was operator error of the bulk bins at whole foods.  I thought I was grabbing a few dark chocolate covered almonds (yummy), instead the dispenser wouldn’t stop dispensing and I ended up with a pound of weird chocolate and ginger covered almonds (not yummy).  Of course I didn’t realize they were ginger until after I paid for them and I was met with disappointment and sadness, yet again!

I’m coming off a well deserved rest day on Tuesday after working out for 6 days in a row.  The routine was something like this:

• Wednesday/Thursday was bootcamp,
• Friday was Pure TRX, (which was early in the morning and seemed like something I dreamt, and I experienced jello arms the rest of the day, even typing proved difficult)
• Saturday was Red Rocks (otherwise known as calf explosion)
• Sunday introduced a new workout called Triple Sweat, brought to you by Epic Ryde (it was nice to spin out the legs a little after exploding my calves the day before)
• Monday, bootcamp
• Tuesday, REST!

I was longing for rest day on Sunday as my calves were becoming increasingly tight.  Of course I can’t keep up this pace forever, I’m just trying to intensify for a bit, change things up.  I felt like I counteracted all the working out, with lots of eating over the weekend. Brunch is my weekend downfall, and God definitely didn’t intervene and slap mimosas and beignets out of my hand.  Thankfully the intense working out all paid off, I was down 1.5 lbs on Monday!

16 days left before the SPARTAN, and tonight I start the 6 days in a row of workouts (again), unless my leg falls off.

 

Never Give Up on Your Stupid, Stupid Dreams!

Or so a cartoon image that I see everyday at work tells me.  One might call it inspirational.

This month marks one year of this weight loss business. I can’t say I’m any better off than I was six months ago, but I can say that I’m better off than I was a year ago.  It is nice to reflect on because I’ve been gaining and losing the same five pounds for what seems like forever. I still have plenty of weight to lose, which makes hitting this plateau damn frustrating!  I have less than a month (23 days) until my next race, the SPARTAN, a 5K obstacle race where they don’t tell you what the obstacles are, but from the videos it looks painful.  I mean challenging. So my focus is on that and shedding a few lbs before race day.

K and I are still doing weekly weigh-ins, I’m not sure what I owe so far but it has to be a lot.  And I can’t really remember the ups and downs, except that I was down two and then up 5.  Heh, heh, uh…yeah.  I’m stuck but I have to remember not to give up….I think I need a cartoon that’s a little more inspirational

 

Tips for the Single Girl

 

I fell off the wagon…and then got silly. Which apparently was NOT the thing to do if you were a single lady in 1938.  Luckily, I lost one pound (and kept my dignity), despite partaking in a much-needed happy hr(s). And I think K lost 1.5, so we are even now. Only 3 weeks left and 4 lbs to go.  I don’t really have anything to write about. Except that I knowingly sabotaged what could have been a 2 lb loss.  I don’t plan on repeating that this week. After making a decision to do an insane spinning class last night *insert plug for Epic Ryde here*, I’m feeling good about this week.  My biggest obstacle that I can see coming is that it’s Girl Scout cookie time! Aaarrgh! That compounded with the fact that it’s supposed to snow Friday and I have that day off. I’m going to try to avoid this pitfall by not going home with two boxes of cookies on Thursday.  There’s nothing worse (or more delicious) than being snowed in and the only food option is thin mints.

 

Dear Food Diary, Today I ate…

We both owe $5. Much to my disappointment, it was decided that a loss would be 0.8 lb or more. Shenanigans! K remained the same, and I lost half a pound.  And, yes, I said LOST!  I owe $5 even though I accomplished weighing less than I did the previous week. Whatever. Honey badger don’t care, and I guess I shouldn’t either.  I gave into my triggers and scarfed some butterscotch brownies over the weekend.  I kind of thought I would have at least lost a pound (or 0.8 lbs). But I was 0.3 lb short so I can pretty much attribute that to my sweet tooth. Lame.

This problem segues into a discussion that came up after weigh-in, keeping track of what you eat sucks! For anyone that hasn’t had the pleasure of counting every calorie you stuff in your face, consider yourself lucky. It is a tedious task, and keeping track of it every day is tough. And the more you lose the more important it is to keep track of calories, because the target keeps moving. But the longer you do it, the more you would rather do ANYTHING else.  Which can lead to eating some brownies and think it will just balance out.  If you asked me how I felt yesterday about what I ate, I’d say pretty good.  But if I have to add everything up at the end of the day, that would tell a different story.  Right now my net calories are a little over 1000/day to lose 2 lb/week. After tallying up my food, (I ate approx. 1600 cals), and subtracting what I burned (walked the dogs approx 200 cals) I still needed to make up about 400 cals.  And I can tell you that was not something I wanted to figure out last night when I was perfectly content to do nothing (aka watching Real Housewives).

 

I got this

Two weeks of not drinking has paid off. I’m down 1.5 lbs (yay!).  K, of course, pulled off a loss as well. Only five weeks and 5.5 lbs to go. So we owe nothing and move on to the next week. But all I keep thinking is, what could I have done to make it 2 lbs? It’s funny how the money saved from not drinking immediately goes out the window to other things. I’m confident going into this thing that I can do the 7lbs, I just have to stay on the wagon.  And the first temptation was a cupcake decorating and wine tasting downtown. Why do people insist on combining my favorite things and dangling them in my face at the same time I’m trying to abstain?! Luckily the idea of paying money to go do such a thing is unthinkable. And I can always do it on my own (or perhaps invite others over) sometime in the future when I’m 7 lbs lighter  

Speaking of temptation, I also pass by a sign every day on my way to work, a red star with a donkey in the middle and the words tacos, tequila, whiskey, hanging underneath. And then that’s what I’m thinking about on the way to work, I would love some tacos, tequila and whiskey, in my mouth right now.  It’s one of those things that I think about, and then soon forget, but now I’m rounding that third week of sobriety and all I can think is, I can’t wait to try this place, I long for happy hour filled with tacos, tequila and whiskey!

 

New Year, Same Resolution

I’m sure this is familiar to most people, set out to change yourself for the new year via a New Years Resolution.   (Or several, the list can get long when your shooting for self-improvement perfection) You start off strong, thinking this will be the year, but after a month the excitement fades and you just slip back into what’s easy.  Why? Because it’s a lot of hard work, that’s why.  How can you stick to something that may take more than a year to accomplish? I guess you do it like they do in AA, one day at a time.  I lost 25 lbs in 2011, which I feel pretty good about. Would it have been nice to lose it faster? Sure. Would it have felt awesome to lose double that? Of course. But I lost it and it’s stayed lost, which is more than I can say for any other resolution to lose weight I’ve ever had

It’s not like the resolution has changed this year, but the start of a new year is an excuse to kick off a new phase.  I can sum up the last challenge for you: K lost 20 lbs (YEA!) in 12 weeks, I lost nothing.  Good story. (I’m not at all frustrated). And the new challenge is 7 lbs by my birthday, which is about 7 weeks from the beginning of the year. This time we’re throwing in our own money for each weigh-in: $10 if we gain, $5 if we stay the same.  If we lose we pay nothing. At the end if we both meet our goal, we split it.  One of us can win the whole pot if only one makes the 7 lb goal.  And if we don’t make it, well we haven’t figure that out yet.

I’m giving it the best effort I can for the next 7 weeks: giving up alcohol (gasp!); making sure I eat more greens/protein than carbs/sugar; working out a little more, and trying to switch up my routine.  I am better off in a lot of ways this year, one is that I can actually run! That should help.

 

Fail

Sorry I’m slacking on this. And maybe I know why. Because I have nothing to report. I had yet another couple of weigh-ins where I was up and then slightly down. But I’m pretty much where I started, while K has lost 20lbs!   She has lost it faster than I ever did, and pretty damn consistently. She has given me a tip, possibly the secret to her success, DIM, some hippie crap that’s supposed to regulate estrogen levels. So I’m going to try it, because I’m at a loss (or not) as to what else to do. I mean I’m not saying I’ve been perfect on dieting and whatnot, but I should be down something right?

Good news, and yet confusing news, is that I fit into the original green dress I was going to wear for the wedding. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to zip it up?  This challenge is coming to an end, and we have yet to determine how the final weigh-in will go, but you will know the final results at the beginning of next year. I imagine it will be similar to how it is now, K kicking my ass!

 

Thanksgiving

Turkey, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin roll…mmmmm.This picture pretty much sums up how Thanksgving went for me. I did workout over the weekend, but it wasn’t balanced well with the eating of leftovers and drinking.  I have pretty much gained everything back since the start of this 12 week adventure. I can say that the scale reflected something different this morning, and I’m back to that 195 number I love so much.  

Well I haven’t posted anything in a while, not sure what happened (time warp).  Let’s see if I can sum up,  this is testing my memory, but last week I fell short (only lost half a pound) while K was able to pull a significant number.  And the week before that we were both up. I can say that K was much more successful over the holiday, avoiding stuffing and mashed potatoes AND completing a 5K! I’m not sure which I’m more impressed by, as I am unable to do either.

Given this week was yet another crappy weigh-in for me, and the ever shrinking amount of time I have left to lose 10 lbs (only 5 weeks left), K was understandably concerned with OUR success. I have let November pass with no real progress. But I’m ready to kick it up a notch (or five) and bring it.  I won’t mention the added obstacle of next week…we’ll see how that unfolds, but rest assured I am not throwing in the towel!

 

Weigh-In #7 (belated)

Sorry for the late post, I was out of town and forgot to post it before I left.

Ok my tailspin is over. I think I’ve recovered from the stupid test, mostly. Of course that doesn’t come without consequence. And the scale (my honest friend) is always there to assign my weeks missteps a number.  This week I was up a half pound from Halloween, and right back at my favorite number. And K was able to steal with another huge loss!

I’m ready to turn this around and I want to get as far away from stupid 195 as I can by the end of the month.  Which, given my track record, will be difficult.  Oh how I wish I could just workout more and eat whatever the hell I wanted. At this point in the game I know what to do and what works, I’m just tired of doing it. But I’m ready to get back in it.

I was reading an article on diet rage, and it seemed apt for this time in the process. Feeling the same frustrations as with road rage, not getting to where you want to be fast enough.   You just have to give in to the fact it takes as long as it takes. That’s how I feel, I’m in one long traffic jam.

 

Halloween Hangover

Where do I begin? Well due to the holiday, we pushed the weigh-in to last night. I did weigh-in on Monday, I was up a pound, and not at all interested in getting on the scale on Wednesday.  In my mind, I was up and it was K’s chance for a the steal. But we went through the motions, K was victorious and broke the cycle, and an added bonus of losing 10lbs so far! 

I was excited for her, but less than excited for the consequences of the past few days of doing whatever the hell I wanted.  Eating what I wanted, drinking what I wanted, just laying about. It wasn’t a good strategy, but I needed the break. Who knew that would put me in such a bad mood. And now it’s like winter out there and all I want to do is hibernate.  I’m trying to work on the motivation. My bad mood over the weigh-in led to discussion about looking at the big picture, and how far I’ve come, yadda yadda. I try, but I also think about how far I have to go and it frustrates me.

Speaking of how far I’ve come, here are some Halloween pics, my first costume as Super Grover, and then it’s resurrection over the weekend: