Quick Hit for the Weekend

Ok, so after looking at yesterday’s post about exercise, I have to say that I noticed something.  And I don’t really like it. 

I noticed that most of my delaying, most of my obssessing, most of my “need” to find the “perfect plan,” is due to one thing: I don’ wanna.  Seriously.  I read through that this morning again and thought, “All any of that really boils down to is whining.  And I need to accept that if I want to lose weight in a healthy manner, and keep it off, there are things I’m going to have to do that I might not want to do.  Not at first, and maybe not ever.”

*sigh*  OK.  FINE.

Also, I’m headed home to spend the weekend with Mom.  I’m really looking forward to it, but it presents a challenge.  Usually, when we get together we drink WAY too much wine, stay up WAY too late, and (I) end up eating my way through at least one bag of (insert substance made of flour and fat or sugar).  I already talked to Mom, and neither one of us really wants to do that this weekend, so at least we’re on the same page.  But in the past that hasn’t always meant that we followed through.  So I’m putting this out there today so that I have to report in on Monday.  I’m hoping that will provide additional impetus to stay on the straight and narrow. 

Have a good weekend!

Quick! Look Over There!

Today’s assignment in the Beck book is to pick an exercise plan.

No, really!  Behind you!  Look!  LOOK!!

Still there?  Damn.  Me, too.

I am not ready to pick an exercise plan.  Picking an exercise plan, for me, is intensive work, involving weeks of research on exactly how MUCH I should do (30 minutes? an hour? 45 minutes on Mondays and Wednesdays, but an hour on Fridays with alternating 20-minute Saturdays when the moon is full?), and WHEN I should do it (mornings? evenings? aren’t you more likely to have a heart attack early in the morning? it’s 5am and my chest is tight, OMG I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE! but who has time after work? and I can’t get sweaty on my lunch hour because I don’t have time to shower!), and the KIND I should do (cardio? weights? heavy weights? light weights? weights AND cardio? weights THEN cardio? cardio then weights? all weights? all cardio? pilates? yoga? turbo kick (hi, Charlotte!)? free weights? machines? bands? treadmill intervals? OMG I’M DYING AGAIN I HATE INTERVALS!), and then of course I’ll read some article that shoots my fledgling plan all to hell and have to START ALL OVER.  This is SERIOUS BUSINESS, people.

I might be overthinking this.

And again, I come back to, I’ve always been great at all or nothing.  Lazing on the couch 24/7 (well, ok 16/7, ’cause yanno, a girl’s gotta sleep SOMETIME), or getting up at 4am every damn morning because THAT’S what dedicated people DO.  They also sometimes workout a second time after work.  Plus weights.  Which takes them up to somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2 hours a day, which is a number NORMAL PEOPLE DON’T ASPIRE TO, OK??

Where’s the middle ground?  An hour a day doesn’t seem like a lot, but when it involves getting up at 4am every morning, it starts to take on a whole new level of dedication that I’m not frankly sure I can sustain long-term.  And let’s be honest: I hate working out after work.  H-A-T-E it.  I have too much other stuff to do after work (like blog!).  So it’s the mornings for me.  I’m leaning right now toward 4am mornings 3 days a week, and yoga with a dvd or weights or something 3 days a week, because at least I can do that at home, and it’s not hard cardio, thus granting me at least an extra hour of sleep on those days.  (I have to get up WAY before I hit the gym for cardio in order to let my body wake up.  Otherwise my lungs close up and I can’t breathe.  It ain’t pretty.  So I get up at 4am to let my body wake up before I have to be at the gym down the street by 5am.  Yes, really.  It’s ridonkulous.) 

I keep thinking that if I find the “right” DVD/equipment/plan/shoes/treadmill-entertainment, I’ll magically become someone who exercises EFFORTLESSLY.  Four a.m.?  NO PROBLEM.  I LOVE getting up at 4am!  (Does that person even exist?)  (Except in infomercials, I mean?)  (If you ARE that person, shut up.)  (Just kidding.  You don’t have to shut up.)  (No, really, I was just being nice when I said that.  Shut up.)

So, like the good obssessive-complusive person I am, I’m totally setting this assignment aside until the weekend.  I need some time to figure something out that a) I will actually DO, and b) that isn’t either too demanding or too slackadaisical.  (Hey, look!  I made a word!)  (Um.  Actually, I really do like that new word.  I’m going to keep using it.) 

IN OTHER NEWS. 

You may or may not know that Weight Watchers has a set of what they call Good Health Guidelines.  You can read about them in depth over at Jen’s blog, “Perfect in our Imperfections” (which used to be called “Yet Another Weight Watcher’s Blog,” but I like the new title SO MUCH MORE).  You’ll have to scroll down, but the series was fairly recent, so you won’t have to scroll far.  (Unless you get sucked in and can’t stop reading, WHICH I TOTALLY DID.)  Basically it boils down to, “X Servings of Dairy,” “X Servings of Whole Grains,” “X Servings of Protein” . . . there’s one about water and one about taking a mulitvitamin, and a couple others that I can’t remember right now.  I think there are 5 (or maybe 8 – that’s EIGHT, not the little smiley with the sunglasses that looks like this: ) all together. 

When I did WW, those guidelines didn’t work for me: the protein was too low, I can’t eat dairy (and you would not BELIEVE the tizzy that threw the leaders into: “OMG, what can you eat??  Calcium! Calcium! Nothing but dairy – NOTHING ELSE – has calcium! Your bones!  They’re melting!  Meeeeeelllllllllltiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!  Oh, what a world, what a world!!”), and the grains requirement was on the high side for my body.  (Seriously on the dairy thing, btw.  I kept thinking, “FFS, this is LOS ANGELES, there are all kinds of people out there who aren’t eating dairy in this city, HOW ARE YOU NOT USED TO THIS?!?!”  But I digress.)  (A lot.)  (I’m tired and in a weird mood, cut me some slack.)

So the last time I did a calorie-counting diet (which is what I’m going to do again), I made up my OWN Good Health Guidelines (GHGs), because otherwise I can TOTALLY eat 1500 calories worth of ice cream and call it a day.  I thought it might be wise to rein that tendency in.  So in no particular order here are my own GHGs *drumroll*:
1. Get some exercise.  (Ironic, isn’t it?)
2. Eat at least 2 servings of plant fat.
3. Eat one meatless meal.
4. Eat at least one serving of fruit.
5. Get enough protein.  (I used to have a number attached to that, but some days I need 100 grams and some days I’m good with 20.  So now I just try to listen to my body.  *GASP* revolutionary, right?)
6. Eat 0-2 servings of whole grains.  (I don’t worry if I miss a day.  I do better on low grains, high veggies/protein.)
7. Eat 1 or fewer servings of dairy.
8. Eat 1 or fewer servings of sugar and/or white flour.
I left those last two in because I didn’t want to feel like it was FORBIDDEN for me to eat dairy/sugar/white flour, but I didn’t want to encourage it, either.  (My lists are comprehensive.  If something isn’t on the list, then in my head it’s automatically FORBIDDEN.  Except stuff like vegetables.  And that eventually triggers a binge.  On sugar/dairy/flour, not vegetables.  I hope that went without saying.)

Whew.  That was long.  What do you think of my GHGs?  Is there anything you think I should add?  Subtract?  Why or why not?  Discuss.  (No, just kidding.  You don’t have to discuss.  My head is just in a weird place right now.)  (But please tell me what you think if you managed to get through the LONGEST POST EVER.)

Looking for Time

Today was a good day overall, all things considered.  (I think that’s redundant, but I don’t care.)  I went to bed last night at 8:45 and slept like a ROCK straight through until 8:15 this morning.  And when I woke up, I had that headache you get when you’ve been crying, although I hadn’t been crying the night before.  (The DAY before sure, but I’d stopped by nighttime.  I’m just sayin’.) 

And I had a list of things to do that was long (as usual), and although I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed, that feeling was lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce.  So I had some breakfast (my new, non-negotiable rule: Thou Shalt Eat Breakfast and No, Coffee Doesn’t Count), and some therapy (grief to go with your granola, anyone?) and generally lazed around/marinated in my own crappy feelings.  Which was good.  And much-needed.

I did at least do the vaccuuming and clean the bathroom.  Because both of those things really needed to be done.  Really.  I’m not lying, here.

The Beck assignment for today basically boiled down to, Thou Shalt Find the Time to Support Thy New Eating Habits.  (With bonus points for correct use of “thou” and “thy.”)  There was actual scheduling involved, which I simultaneously love (yay! control!) and hate (boo! you-are-not-the-boss-of-me!).  Overall, I have good experiences with scheduling my life, as long as I leave myself some wiggle room for the unexpected.  So instead of doing a daily layout, I did a “standard weekday,” and then Saturday and Sunday. 

And given how stressed and overwhelmed I’ve been (granted, that was more emotional than circumstantial), I was stunned to find . . . free time.  Seriously.  On Saturday and on Sunday, I found actual, honest-to-god free time.  Even AFTER I scheduled a nap on BOTH days.  Huh.  It makes some sense, actually: when I feel totally overwhelmed, I tend to wander aimlessly from project to project, never quite completing anything because I always think there’s something more pressing I should be doing.  So it takes me 2 hours to finish what should take me 45 minutes or an hour.  But in this case, I honestly did not realize that I really DO have some time during my week to take care of myself.  Not just dieting, but time to relax and take care of my mental health. 

I’m just not sure I can really use it the way I want to.  See, I’m trying to get used to getting my laundry/housework/etc. done on the weekends, because next year I’ll be in school 4 nights a week.  But I don’t do well when I try and clean the whole house all at once.  I do better when I do it in small batches.  I keep reminding myself that next year is a whole YEAR away.  Baby steps, trends, all that.  And I’ll have Friday nights off next year.  So I’m trying to figure out how to break up my stuff into Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  I’m not there yet, but I’m starting to realize that as long as I’m slowly moving in that direction, it’s all good. 

But seriously, free time.

NICE.

Happy Hump Day!

Oh, yes.  Yes, I REALLY DID JUST SAY THAT. 

I had jury duty today, and I only cried in the bathroom twice.  (Ok, 3 times if you count the morning, but that wasn’t even enough to turn my face red, so I don’t count it.)  I took a book, which I did not read.  I sat in the chair, with my hands folded, staring vacantly at the feet of the man across from me.  (He had brown shoes.  With a blue suit and black socks.  The mind, it reels.)  And this is going to sound weird, but it was NICE.  I needed some time to just sit without thinking, without feeling like I had to get something done, without feeling like I should be otherwise (productively) occupied.  I actually feel better tonight than I did this morning, as though the :TILT: sign on my head has been reset – at least a little bit.

They booted me off the jury, though.  It was a criminal trial, and it turns out the defense attorneys don’t look kindly on folks who have family and friends in law enforcement.  Who knew?  (/sarcasm)  I have to report back next week, which kind of sucks, because that’s the week of Thanksgiving.  Then again, I’ll still have family and friends in law enforcement, so I might just get booted again.  *shrug*  I don’t really care either way: criminal trials are kind of interesting, plus I get an extra $40 a day.  So, what the hell. 

In Beck news, I have not looked at my Advantage cards for about two days, and I can tell.  It suddenly seems like less of a big deal to eat WW ice cream sundae(s) or those single-serving Doritos (that I still eat more than one serving of).  So tonight I’ll look at them all again before bed, and set the alarm on my cell phone to remind me to look at them tomorrow. 

Tomorrow’s assignment is to make environmental changes that will support my efforts to lose weight.  In a way, I’ve already been doing that.  I have chips, but I also have a food scale, and I portion out my chips into 1-oz servings in little baggies, which helps remind me of how much I’m eating and keep me from bingeing (most of the time).  I also have a few WW single-serving ice creams in the freezer, but again, it’s better than keeping an undivided container in there: I just eat whatever’s there if the containers are open.  And those are fairly recent changes, so I’ve already started this assignment.

The big temptation for me is afternoon coffee at Starbucks.  Around 2:30 or 3:00 I find myself really wanting some sugar, and if I can have it with caffeine, so much the better!    Most days I don’t succumb, but some days I eat a lot of other stuff in order to keep from having the coffee.  So I think I might allow myself some sort of “treat” at work once a week: the breadstick with my salad at lunch, for instance, or a small sugary coffee drink in the afternoon, or a single-serving bag of Doritos.  That way, if I know it’s coming, I can wait for it.  At the moment, nights are hardest for me, so I’ll probably work in a few treats during the evenings, as well, on the logic that if I know I get say, a single-serving of ice cream every other day, then the days I DON’T get it won’t seem so hard.  I won’t have as long to wait, so I won’t feel deprived, and that feeling of deprivation won’t, in turn, trigger a binge. 

Overall, it’s more crap than I’d LIKE to be eating, but I can dial down from every other day to 3 times a week, to 2 times a week, to once a week.  That will be about where I want to be, and if I get there gradually, it will be a learned behavior instead of an iron-fisted grip of CONTROLCONTROLCONTROL.  Mostly I’m trying to convince myself that a gradual dial-back is NOT the same as half-assing it.  I get an A+ in “all or nothing,” and this middle ground is disconcerting.  I keep feeling like if I can do HALFway, then I should do ALL the way.  I know it’s not like that, and I know further that’s the attitude that gets me in trouble in my head, but there it is.  So I’m dialing back certain behaviors - and it’s not the same as half-assing it.

Right?

And the Rain Came Down

Remember that virus I mentioned in the last post?  Well, it wasn’t really a virus.  It was more like a nervous breakdown. 

What?  They’re pretty much the same, right?  No?  Fine.

I started cracking Thursday night.  By Friday mid-morning I was crying.  And crying.  And crying.  And then not crying.  And then crying again.  That lasted all through the weekend, into today.  This morning I went to work for a few hours, and left at noon.  I’m out of sick days (mountains of stress will do that to you), so I just took the hours without pay.  OH WELL. 

I would take tomorrow off, but . . . wait for it . . . I have jury duty.  And I’ve postponed it twice, so I can’t postpone it again.  (The first time they called me I was moving, and the second time my Grandpa was dying.)  I wonder if random crying jags will get me excused?  Hell, it’s not even like they’ll be fake!

So this afternoon I had some counseling, and took a nap.  Part of the problem I think, is that I’ve got all this stressful stuff going on, and yet I’ve chosen this time to decide to get my eating-disordered act together: I’ve basically ripped my (maladaptive) coping mechanism out from under my own feet.  And bruised my tailbone on the landing.  Ouch.

Today I focused on the most recent stress: my grandma dying, and missing her funeral.  I realized that part of the reason I’m so upset, far more so than I expected to be, is because she was really my only ally on that side of the family.  With the execption of a few cousins, she was the only one who was actually nice to me.  She was the one who LIKED me, and I liked her, too.  And with her death, it’s like I’ve lost a whole family instead of just one member.  In some ways that’s good: I can’t say that I’m sorry not to have to attend another dysfunctional family gathering, but at the same time, it’s having more of an impact than I thought it really would.  So that sucks, and I’m dealing with it. 

In other news, tomorrow’s Beck assignment is to find a Diet Coach.  Since I have my Motivational Matchup (hi, Beth! and thanks, MizFit and PriorFatGirl!), I’m pretty set there.  So I don’t have to add an extra project on tomorrow as far as Beck is concerned.  I can just keep plugging away at eating slowly and giving myself credit for things.  (Also at reading the cards, but that’s the easiest thing for me.)

All of which means I can bury myself in a novel at jury duty tomorrow.  (Or take the computer.  Do they have internet there?  I have no idea.)

Monday Already??

Wow.  The weekend went fast. 

Before I get into stuff, go check out the cooking blog.  I just posted a dinner recipe for quinoa, shrimp and sun-dried tomatoes.  YUM. 

I’ve been fighting a virus all weekend, so although I did get a few things done, mostly I laid around and watched way too much TV. 

I’ve been thinking about stuff while I was laying on the couch, though.  For instance, where is the line between “baby steps” and “half-assing it?”  Really.  At what point do I move from making small, sustainable changes into just phoning it in?  And conversely, where do I move from making small, sustainable changes, to making totally unrealistic ones that are just too big to make all at once?  I mean, ok, if I never exercised, and I suddenly decided to start doing an hour EVERY DAY without fail, that might be a big change.  But what if I’ve done an hour every day before, but done it sporadically?  Does dropping back to 100 crunches and the 100-push-up challenge mean I’m phoning it in?  What if I’m trying (as I currently am) to get enough sleep (again)?  What if getting 7 or 8 hours a night means either going to bed at 8 or sleeping in until 5 or 6 in the morning?  And if I’m not used to going to bed at 8 (it’s already 8:30 as I write this), does working on dialing back my bedtime to an ungodly-early hour mean I’m not phoning it in?  I’m slightly confoozled. 

Whatever.  This week, I’ll keep working on the Beck book, and I’m also going to work on:
Getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night,  no exceptions.
Drinking 80 oz. of water a day.
Daily crunches and pushups.  (100 crunches and the 100-push-up challenge, over in the sidebar.)

I think the next thing will be to add cardio (back) in, but for now I’ve GOT to get some damn sleep.

Also, I was reading the part in the Beck book about eating slowly and mindfully.  What I said before about feeling even MORE deprived when I give food my WHOLE attention still stands, but I also realized something else.  The main reason that I eat quickly, the main reason that I’ve done so for so many meals that it’s become my dominant paradigm (ooo, look, a 50-cent word!), is because I’m CONSTANTLY thinking about the next thing on my To-Do list.  I have a To-Do list that’s about 5 miles long at any given time, and I always think that I have to get everything on it done RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW or YESTERDAY at the LATEST.  I live my life like that, and failing to slow down and eat is just another incarnation of that mentality.

But I was thinking about it, and I realized that the reason I eat quickly is because I’ve got so much other stuff to DO, but then, after I’ve eaten, I still feel anxious and rushed instead of like I’ve had a break.  When I sit down and SLOW down, it slows my whole day down, but in a good way, like meditation (which I’ve also convinced myself I don’t have time for lately, but let’s not talk about that right now, ok?).  And I’m realizing that if I’m really THAT busy (I’m not) and THAT stressed (I am), that I need to seriously re-prioritize some things.  First and foremost is that my self needs to stop taking a back seat to EVERYTHING ELSE.  I can’t put myself last or I’ll burn out.

There’s a concept espoused in the church that I go to called “giving from the overflow.”  It’s the idea that when you need healing, when you need replenishment and rejuvenation, you TAKE IT.  You do what you need to do in order to fill yourself back up.  And you fill up until your “cup runneth over.”  And THEN, and ONLY then, when you’re so full of life and love and energy and happiness that you can’t contain it anymore, THEN you give back.  THEN you take on extra projects.  THEN you do favors for friends, pick up the slack at work, etc.  And you’re literally giving from that overflow that is coming from your cup, because you’re just TOO FULL to contain it anymore. 

At the moment, my cup is empty, but I keep taking on projects.  And the more projects I take on, the more I forget that OTHER things have to come off my list.  It’s more important that I fill out law school applications than it is that I vaccuum twice a week, and it’s more important to cook healthy meals in advance than it is to hang new shelving in my room.  Some stuff has to come off the list so that I can take care of myself.  The more projects I take on, the more water drains out of my cup – and at the moment, there’s nothing there to drain, so I’m basically living in a deficit.  My cup is empty, and I’m out on the streetcorner selling lemonade, trying to be all things to all people for all projects.

So tonight I dragged out my lists.  I need to remember to differentiate between what is Important, and what is Urgent.  Sometimes things are both, but more often they’re only one or the other.  And things that are Urgent but not Important can wait.  Nine times out of ten, they aren’t really all that Urgent at all, except in my head. 

And we all know the kind of Crazy that lives in my head.

So tomorrow I’ll work on slowing down.  Or rather, on slooooooowwwwiiiiiiing doooowwwwnnnnnnn.  (Hee.  That was fun to write, actually.)  (Yeah, I know.  I’m a nerd.)  (No, really, I know.  Shut up.)  And I’ll work on remembering that in the end, it’s not really about the food.  It’s about going through life at a breakneck speed, when if I’d just SLOW DOWN, a lot of my anxiety and stress would resolve itself. 

And after reading all that, I think that crunches and push-ups and water and sleep is probably not half-assing it.  Not at the moment, anyway.

Random Friday Stuff

Ok, I have to get to work, but wanted to check in. 

Today’s assignment is to eat slowly and mindfully.  I’m not sure how I feel about that; sometimes eating that way just makes me feel MORE deprived.  Like, “Hey, I better enjoy this because it’s ALL I GET.”  I think because when I ate very VERY little, that was how I ate: every bite was to be savored, because I had so few bites.  So I might not commit to “slowly.”  I’m good with “mindfully,” because that basically boils down to “enjoy what you eat,” and I can do that.  And I CAN commit to waiting 10 or 20 minutes before eating something else, because I do tend to eat quickly, and sometimes I think I’m still hungry, when in reality the food just hasn’t had time to hit my stomach yet.  So, we’ll see.

In other news, I’m going to start posting again over at the cooking blog.  Mom and I haven’t posted since August, what with all the family members dropping like flies (ok, just two - and they were old, granted), and other stuff going on (buy a house! go on a business trip! apply to law school! take the LSATs! etc.), so we’ll see if anyone is still reading. 

This weekend (Sunday) I’ll have a recipe for shrimp with quinoa and sun-dried tomatoes, all made with ingredients from Trader Joe’s!  Also 5-3-1 omelettes: 5 ingredients, 3 minutes, 1 dirty dish.  It’s pretty awesome (and is my healthy-eating-at-work staple).

I’ll keep posting over the weekend (I’m SO dedicated – ha!) because the Beck book doesn’t have days off.  Just FYI. 

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

So I mentioned the other day that one of my big bosses was let go.  That was because a bigger boss than him was let go, and the new guy who replaced THAT boss is restructuring some things.  And today, the axe fell hard.  We lost between 4 and 8 (depending on who you talk to) major executives within our company, some of them people I know and have worked with.  At the moment, my department is safe, and it looks like we’ll stay that way (thank God), but the tension in the air today was thick enough to cut with a knife.  I’m wiped out.

Also, I don’t think I’m going to retake the LSAT after all.  Although I’m getting more accurate at the logic games, I’m not getting any FASTER, which means I’ll end up with a similar score in the end.  So I’m going to wing it and see what happens.  (*gulp*)

On the weight/health front today, I think I did ok.  Except for lunch.  I stood in my boss’s office with my scallops and he ate his tuna sandwich, and we both worked during lunch.  Oops.  (The irony here is that I USUALLY sit down for lunch, albeit at my desk.)  I walked out of his office, and went, “Oh, SHIT!” when I remembered that I was  supposed to sit down.  Eh.  Whatever.  I did eat dinner sitting down though, which is unusual for me.  (I’m a stand-over-the-sink-and-shovel-it-in-so-I-can-get-on-to-more-important-things girl.  Er.  Or, I USED to be that girl.)  So that’s a skill I will have to do a LOT of work on.

I have to admit that I was surprised that other people really DO sit down to eat.  I think I thought it was something people only really did if they had kids or if they were a tv family.  Seriously.  I hardly EVER sit down to eat.  You know when I sit down?  When I’m at work, and I work through lunch.  THEN I sit down, because my ass is glued to my desk chair.  But I don’t think that’s what Beck has in mind. 

The next lesson is on giving myself credit.  The first sentence in that chapter was something like, “People who have trouble with weight loss are often very self-critical.”  I read that and I started laughing, because when I opened the book and saw that it was about giving myself credit, my first thought was, “For WHAT?  I didn’t even eat sitting down today!”  Ok, point taken. 

Actually, giving myself credit for things is traditionally something I have not been very good at.  I tend to look at the things I’ve done well and think, “But that is stuff you’re SUPPOSED to just DO.  You don’t get CREDIT for that, for fuck’s sake.”  But Lord help me if I slip and fall, even a little.  THEN it’s all, “You idiot.  You can’t even do the simplest things.  Other people do this without a problem.  What the hell is wrong with you?”  I kind of can’t win for losing, you know?  And even as I sit here now thinking, “Hey, I missed lunch but at least I sat down for dinner,” another part of me answers back, “Um, all you did was what you SAID you would do, and you didn’t even do that!  Don’t turn it around to say that it’s ok you were half-wrong because you were also half-right.  There’s no such thing as half-right.  That’s like being half-pregnant.  So don’t sit there and think you’re all virtuous just for not screwing up a SECOND TIME.”

It’s not a very nice voice.  Ahem.  I think this lesson might be a tough one.  (Possibly even tougher than sitting down to eat.  Possibly.)  And on that note, since ya’ll were helpful yesterday with the sitting down thing, do you give yourself credit for stuff?  Do you have trouble recognizing that you’ve done something well?  What about when you’ve screwed up?  Are those two things balanced in your head?  ‘Cause they’re sure not in mine.

And after the day’s emotional roller-coaster (who gets the axe?  Will we get the axe?  I don’t THINK we’ll get the axe.  Oh no, HE got the axe? Etc.), I’m going to bed early.  Really early.  REALLY really early.  Like in 1o minutes.  At seven.  (Ok, I might read for an hour.)

I’m thinking I might have to start adding exercise back into my day as well, but I haven’t fleshed out the baby steps on that one, yet.  I’ll keep you posted.  (Because I know you JUST. CAN’T. WAIT.)

Do People Really Only Eat Sitting Down? SERIOUSLY??

Today was a MUCH better day than yesterday.  There were no big-boss-departures announced, no meltdowns on the phone, no roses that smelled like Grandma’s house.

Thank God.  I don’t think I could have taken another day like that.

Crazy voice has definitely kicked in, though.  I put my hair up this morning, and standing in front of the mirror, from the depths of my psyche, that snotty little voice said, “Hello, fat girl.”  Ouch.  And I immediately started to get sucked in, to feel BAD AND MAD AND SAD and like there was no point in even trying and andandand.  And then I stopped.  And I just stood there for a minute, waiting it out.  And I realized something.  (One of those things was that I should stop starting sentences with the word “and.”)  I realized that that part of Crazy voice is how I justify not changing.  It’s the part of me that is so, SO afraid that if I try, I will fail.  It’s the part of me that thinks deep down, it would be better not to try, better to just remain a medium-sized failure than to give it my best shot and be a HUGE failure.  What’s that saying?  “It’s better to be thought an idiot than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”  That’s kind of how I feel.

So I went to work, and printed out little cards.  Beck calls them Response Cards, and you print the “sabotaging thought” at the top, and then all the counter-thoughts underneath it.  Then you read it when you’re in a bad way.  And you know something?  It seems to be helping.  (Of course, I have about 12 copies of each card, and I have them stashed freakin’ EVERYWHERE.  It’s amazing how much I hate on myself.)

Day 3’s assignment is to eat sitting down.  At first I thought that was no big deal, I could do that.  And then I kept reading.  I have to sit down for EVERYTHING.  If I want a spoonful of peanut butter for a snack, I have to SIT DOWN for it.  If I just want a piece of cheese, I have to sit down.  No bites of anything, no tasting what I’m cooking (I do draw the line at that, because how else am I supposed to know if it’s seasoned properly??).  Weight Watchers used to refer to those as the BLTs: Bites, Licks and Tastes.  And in the last couple of days, while I haven’t been Sitting Down, I HAVE been paying more attention to what I eat standing up – most often while fixing something else. 

Turns out I eat a fair amount before my dinner ever hits the table.  Some days that’s because I just didn’t eat enough during the day, and I’m freakin’ HUNGRY.  Other times, it’s just convenient, or it just looks good.  (Sun-dried tomatoes go in the shrimp and quinoa?  Well, I’ll just snag a couple tomatoes out of the olive-oil-filled jar to eat!!)

We’ll see how I do tomorrow (which is the official Thou Shalt Sit Down day).  Like I said, I’ve already decided that if I’m cooking, and tasting to check for seasonings, I’ll continue to do that.  What I won’t do is continue to “taste” after the seasoning is right (because you know, it just tastes really GOOD).  And if I need a snack, I’ll get it out and put it on a plate.  Ideally, I’ll sit down, but if I can’t (tonight was a throw-dinner-together night, and I didn’t have a chance during prep to sit down), at least I can eat it off of a plate, which still makes it feel more significant than food I’ve “sneaked.” 

And now, I’m beat.  I’m off to bed.

Day 2. Meltdown Number 1.

What?  You didn’t think I’d go 24 hours without a meltdown, did you?  WHAT FUN WOULD THAT BE? 

But first, some other stuff. 

I was blog-surfing (when I should have been working (unless there are work people reading this in which case I WAS WORKING LIKE A DOG ALL DAY because I am THE BEST EMPLOYEE EVER)) today, and I read Roni’s post.  It was pretty much a “this-was-my-weekend” sort of post, but at the bottom was this:

Seriously.. how fabulous a day was that?
Is my inbox bursting from the seams? You bet!
Do I have about a million things on my to do? ohhh yeah.
Is the house completely spotless? HA! not even close.
BUT…
I had a great day with family. I prepared for the week by cutting up fresh veggies, making lunches tomorrow and pulling out stuff for dinner tomorrow (gonna experiment with the crock pot.)

Bolding mine.  And my weekend was almost exactly the opposite: my house got cleaned, errands were run, email cleaned out.  But did I prepare my food for the week?  No.  No, I did not.  Now, that was a conscious choice.  I had 2 dishes to make, and they were both 30-minutes-or-less to prepare, and I was tired yesterday, so I decided to do them after work on Monday and Tuesday.  But when I read that this morning, I thought about what I had chosen to make time for over the weekend, and what I’d blown off.  The house is clean, so I definitely have peace of mind.  But even (especially?) though I knew I was starting a Normal Eating Plan today, I didn’t fix those dinners.  (Now, I did fix one tonight, and I’ll fix the other tomorrow, so I didn’t blow them off completely.  But still.  You see my point.)

I just thought it was an interesting thing to note.

Today I read my affirmation cards at all the appointed times, so that was good.  But after last night’s battle to sit down and just freakin’ DO THEM, it stirred up enough emotional crap that I didn’t sleep well last night.  I kept sort of floating up to the surface of sleep and then back down again.  So today I was TIRED.  EXHAUSTED, even.  And I do not do well on little to no sleep, ok?  NOT. WELL. At all. 

And so the end of the day found me on the phone to my mom, weeping softly sobbing hysterically that my life SUCKS and the LSATs SUCK and I DON’T CARE, and Grandma’s DEAD, and I didn’t get to go to her FUNERAL, and the roses outside my office smell JUST LIKE GRANDMA’S HOUSE, and PART OF ME THINKS SHE’S STILL IN HER HOUSE, (NOT MY BRAIN BUT THE EMOTIONAL PART OF ME BECAUSE I DIDN’T GET TO GO TO HER DAMN FUNERAL) and I cleaned my house but there is still FALL CLEANING TO DO, and the Goodwill to take things to, and one of my big bosses at work is LEAVING (and not voluntarily), and I’m SAD and life SUCKS, AND THIS FUCKING DIET BULLSHIT MAKES ME THINK ABOUT HOW I’M FEELING INSTEAD OF JUST EATING SOME DAMN OREOS AND FUCK-FUCK-FUCKETY-FUCK-FUCK AND DID I MENTION THAT LIFE SUCKS???  Because it DOES.

Ahem.  Yeah.  Poor mom.  She said, ” . . . Well.  Would it help if I came up for a day or two?  I could do your fall cleaning for you and fix dinner.”  And if I hadn’t already lost it, I would have lost it then.  As it was I lost it EVEN MORE, and said something like, “*SOBSOBSOB* yes *SOBHICSOB* please, I *SOBSOB* need my mom!!!!  Please come up and hold my hand!!! *SOBSOBSOB*”

Good times.  Let’s just say that I see a hot bath and a glass of red wine in my VERY NEAR FUTURE, ok?

SO!  One day down, 41 more to go!!  Woo-hoo!  *end sarcasm*

*sigh*  I knew this would be hard, so in some ways it’s ok.  I mean, in the way that it’s totally NOT ok, except that I was kind of (sort of) braced for it, and I know it’s a necessary part of the process and blah, blah, blah, so THAT part is ok.  If that makes sense.

And on to day 2!!  *Dies laughing*

Today my assignment (which YES, I DID already look at several days ago) is to pick two diets: one to start, and a fall-back plan.  Since there are basically 2 kinds of diets (the count-something kind – like Weight Watchers - and the “eat this, at this time, in this quantity, every other Wednesday when the moon is full” kind – like the Zone), I figured I’d pick one of each.  So I’m starting with a 1500-calorie diet, and using the food combining plan as my fall-back.  I have experience with both, they’ve both worked at different times (um – when I’ve adhered to them), and they each temper a different part of the Crazy.

Couple of things, though.  First, because I know the answer, but need to be yelled at a little, please remind me that IT REALLY IS A BAD THING if I eat 1500 calories, and then burn 600 at the gym.  Um.  That’s bad, right?  If I eat 1800 and burn 600, is that ok?  That gives me 1200 altogether.  I mean, I know some diets do that, but I don’t want to TOTALLY screw up my metabolism.  Should I keep 1500 as my absolute, thou-shalt-not-drop-below?  Or can I go down to 1200?  (Does it really go without saying that 900 or 1000 is bad?  What if I’m not hungry?)  Please beat me over the head with this in the comments, because I’m feeling rebellious and like if I’m super-sneaky about it, and don’t feel hungry (except maybe a little, but I don’t want to mention that part) it WILL BE TOTALLY FINE.  (Um.  And I kind of sort of think it might not know it WON’T be fine.)

And the second diet, the food combining diet: I’m going to do the Suzanne Somers one, because OMG her recipes are SO GOOD.  (Seriously, if you do high-protein, medium-high fat, low carb?  GO BUY HER BOOKS.  Just buy them.  REALLY.  Even if you don’t follow the diet, they’re worth it just for the recipes.  SERIOUSLY.  I AM NOT KIDDING.  GO NOW.)  Food combining basically boils down to: don’t eat protein and carbs together.  Some folks take it a step further and say not to eat carbs with any fat either, but I can’t do that – I get stomachaches.  I CAN however commit to only eating plant fats with carbs, because my system seems to process plant fats differently from animal fats.  So I can’t have pasta with alfredo sauce, but I can have pasta with pesto sauce.  And you have to eat fruit separately.  Whatever.  I don’t usually eat fruit with anything else, anyway, so I don’t care.

Anyway, the food combining diet is a good way for me to short-circuit the Crazy when it starts pushing my calorie intake ever lower.  There’s no counting in FC, so that takes care of that.  And it placates the part of me that craves rules.  (At least until I go to the opposite extreme.  But that’s what the counting plan is for!)

I figure, much like WW, I won’t switch between the two more than once a week.  (Probably not even that much.  I like my counting for the most part.)  That way I can’t screw up any good results by PRETENDING to diet, when I’m just rebelling.

PHEW.  That was super-long.  Aren’t you glad I’m done?  I am.  Glad, I mean.  But also done.  Now I’m off to soak in the tub until I’m all pruney.  Lord knows I need it after today.  Woo-hoo!