Too Much Stuff, Squashed Into a Little Ball

Things are crazy around here.  (Then again, when are they NOT?)  So I’m going to space some of this stuff out over the next few days, and you’ll just have to come back if you want to read the whole post!  Muahahahahaha!!  In the meantime, I’m trying to stop by and read at least a couple of blogs a day, but when push comes to shove and I have to choose between reading and exercising, I have to choose exercise.  So, apologies in advance if I’m not commenting so much.  (I might have to go back to working out in the morning, although that comes with its own set of hassles.  Meh.  I’ll figure it out.)

ANYWAY. 

I was at the bookstore the other day about 2 weeks ago (what can I say, I’ve been thinking about this for a while), loitering in the cookbook section (which I do way, WAY too often).  Having browsed the Food Network section and the vegetarian section and the cook-it-fast section and the slow-cooker section, I made my way over to the “healthy” section.  I found a lot of good stuff there: a Best of Cooking Light book that had some yummy-looking stuff, a “Comfort Food Made Healthy” book by Eating Well that was definitely a jackpot find, a Williams-Sonoma “Essentials of Healthful Cooking” that was ALSO a jackpot find. 

And then I glanced down toward the bottom shelves, where I found books with titles like, “Eat Everything You Want Without Gaining a Pound!” and “Gain Taste, Lose Weight!” and “Eat Like a Devil, Look Like an Angel!”  and “The Skinny Girl’s Guide to Gluttony!” and so on.  And on.  And on.  You know the ones I’m talking about.  The books that manage to make you feel bad about yourself before you’ve even THOUGHT about food.  The books that basically boil down to one title: “How to Pretend to Stuff Your Face (Using Lettuce) So You Don’t End Up Looking Like the Fat, Disgusting Cow You Are.”  Books about food that simultaneously scream “Embrace it!” and “Run away, run away!” 

No fucking WONDER our culture is so neurotic about food.  On the one hand we have the eliminate-a-food-group dieters and the Calorie Restriction dieters (though some are doing it for health, not weight, which is a whole ‘nother discussion for a different day), and on the other hand we have Nigella Lawson, described by the Los Angeles Times as “the queen of come-on cooking.”  Food is both fetishized and forbidden (triple points for alliteration!), something we dream about and something we “pay for” at the gym.

Really?  I mean, come on: REALLY?

I wrote a couple of posts back about going back to pre-crazy dieting: about eating off the cuff, on the fly, not worrying SO MUCH, not planning out all my meals and snacks a week in advance, not counting calories, not devoting all my waking hours (or at least a sizable number of them) to pursuit of the RIGHT numbers, the RIGHT exercise, the RIGHT Way To Live (TM).  And what that basically boils down to, for me, is to acknowledge that every meal matters, but that no single meal matters.  That I should get some exercise every day, but the kind doesn’t really matter too much.  It’s just not that big a deal.  It can’t be.  It’s when I let it BECOME a big deal that I slip down into craziness.

And hand in hand with that comes the knowledge that I need to start cooking again.  It’s weird to pore over cookbooks while eating a diet frozen dinner.  It’s WEIRD, ok?  I need to remember that food really IS more than just fuel, at least for me, and to acknowledge that THAT’S OK.  I think food is more than fuel for most people, and honestly I’m not sure I’d want to be any different about it.  Frozen dinners don’t carry that sense of nourishment that real food does.  (I hadn’t realized until recently just how much I’d been relying on pre-packaged food again.)

So Sunday night I ate an enormous dinner: I roasted a chicken and mashed some red potatoes with olive oil, garlic and Parmesan cheese.  I roasted some asparagus with prosciutto.  And sat down at the table and ate.  Now, don’t misunderstand: for some reason, I was ravenous last night – I wasn’t eating just to eat.  But pulling chicken off the bone, sitting in a house full of the smell of (literally) Sunday dinner, it wasn’t just food.  It was a symbol of self-care. 

And in our culture, if you are fat or plump or chunky or even just carrying a LITTLE extra weight, you are not supposed to care for yourself.  Oh, you’ll be told, “take CARE of yourself – lose some weight!” but the very process proscribed for weight-loss is so often to DENY ourselves that most basic symbol of care: eat less, eat diet food, eat non-fat, low-carb and whatever you do, restrict.  Slash your calories, cut your food intake.

The irony there is that for ME, when I eat food that nourishes me – not just my body, but my emotions too – I eat less.  I don’t need food to fill that hole inside because there is no hole.  And so my calorie intake drops, and my portions get smaller (last Sunday notwithstanding!) – all without feeling that I’m missing out on something.  But it’s astonishing (and appalling) to me how HARD it is to do that – how hard it is to take care of myself when I’m surrounded by conflicting messages like “Food is decadent!” and “Food is fuel!”  How hard it is to tune out the chatter and the hyperbole used to sell books and magazines and movies and the Latest! Greatest! Celebrity Diet! EVARRR!!!  This is a seriously schismed culture when it comes to food.

Argh.  I don’t have a good way to wrap this up, either.  I’m all over the place tonight.  This is why I haven’t posted in the last few days.  It doesn’t seem to be sorting it out in my head any better with time though, so for now you get my disjointed ramblings. 

And now it’s a little after 8:00, and I’m going to bed.  I have to get up at 4:00 to go to the gym, and me on fewer than 7 hours of sleep is NOT a happy thing.  😉

*I have to interject here that there are many “diet” books I don’t have a problem with, even if I don’t always like the way they cook.  I’m objecting specifically to the types mentioned at the start of the post.

So . . .

Hey!  Do remember back in the day?  When I had a blog?  That I updated regularly?  Yeah, me too.  Man, those were the days, right?  Good times, I tell ya.  I can FEEL the nostalgia.

. . .

Huh?  Sorry, I was marinating in the nostalgia.  Where was I?

OH, RIGHT.  That BLOG I USED TO UPDATE.  Back before Florida New Year’s Christmas.  Yeeeeeeah.

I think that I think too much.  (Yes, I’m aware of the irony.  Be quiet.)  I came to this conclusion (again – I’ve come to this conclusion before) while standing in the bookstore, leafing through some of Jillian Michaels’ books.  (With a copy of a Williams-Sonoma cookbook tucked under my arm.  Three guesses what book I left the store with, and the first 2 don’t count.)  I was sort of bizarrely fascinated by the fact that she has 3 books out – AND THEY’RE ALL THE SAME DAMN BOOK.  I kept flipping back and forth between them.  Seriously – they’re ALL THE SAME. 

After I got done marveling at the fact that anyone could write 3 books that all contained the EXACT SAME INFORMATION (don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t just The Jillian who had multiple copies of a book with different titles – she just was displayed the most prominently), something else occurred to me.  Do you know why it’s possible to write multiple books like that?  Because people don’t listen the first time.  Honestly, all the books pretty much say the same things and after you’ve read a few, you start to know the words by heart.  Stop eating so much crap (although “crap” is defined differently in different books), and get some exercise.  The best books don’t even promise weight-loss, just that you’ll be healthier.  Eat less crap, exercise more.  Bottom line.

And I started thinking about that: about how they all say the same things, with MINOR variations and about how there’s this huge market for all these books that say the same thing.  Now make no mistake: I’m no different than the other bazillion people who buy the same book over and over.  I flip through them, sort of hoping that I’ll stumble on the Magic Secret That Will Allow Me to Lose Weight Without! Even! Trying!  Yeah, I’ll own it.  I know better, but I kind of hope I’m wrong about the knowing better.

And THAT got me thinking.  (Always dangerous, you know.)  Honestly, if I spent half the time eating well and exercising that I spend rationalizing why it’s ok “just this once” or rationalizing why “that” plan won’t work, I swear to God I’d have lost all my weight 10 years ago.  If I spent as much time working out as I spend tracking calories, fat, Points, carbs, protein, whatever, I’d be in the gym a LOT, ok?

And I have a million reasons (or “reasons”) why I haven’t lost weight: I’m afraid of failure, I’m afraid I won’t have anything to blame my unhappiness on, I’m afraid that there ISN’T a thin person inside me, I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m afraid.  But I think I’m most afraid of losing my hiding place.  I overeat and I drink because I’m hiding. 

And (I have GOT to stop starting every paragraph with that word.  Eventually.) I was thinking back to college, before I lived on Tootsie Pops (over 100 licks, by the way, is the answer) and Diet Coke.  You know what?  Even accounting for the Crazy, even BEFORE the Tootsie Pop and Diet Coke Diet started to seem like a good idea, I was losing weight.  I was losing it consistently, and pretty quickly, too (just not quickly ENOUGH, hence the advent of the Crazy Diet).  It was actually the only time in my life that I lost a fair amount of weight in a healthy manner. 

Nowadays I count calories, track my intake, measure my heart rate to account for calories burned, fret about not lifting enough weights, wonder if I’m eating too much fat/protein/carbs.  But in college, pre-crazy, I didn’t do any of those things.  I got some cardio and did some light weights every day, but I didn’t stress about it (in retrospect I could have stood to lift heavier weights, but at the time the conventional wisdom was “light weights, 5,000 reps”).  I didn’t count calories; instead I left mayo off of everything, skipped cheese, didn’t eat a lot of pasta.  Instead I ate whole grains, smoothies for lunch (even those sherbet monstrosities from Jamba Juice), single portions at dinner of whatever was being served (and it was NOT low-cal).  I wasn’t a big snacker, although I had a steady stream of coffee and/or water in my system.  I never got on a scale, instead relying on a tape measure and the fit of some jeans I wanted to fit back into.  I didn’t journal my food, I didn’t track my exercise, I didn’t do any of that.  And I lost weight.  And I haven’t lost more than about 10 pounds successfully since then, with all the counting and calculating and obssessing.

Interesting, no?

So I stopped counting calories the other day.  I’m still keeping a journal of WHAT I ate because *part* of the reason I didn’t overeat during that pre-crazy time was because I lived with other people and I was embarrassed to keep eating just for the taste.  Now I live alone, so I don’t have that impediment anymore.  So I keep a journal so that I know how many servings I’ve had. 

I’m going to make a return to pre-crazy eating and see what happens.  I’m going to keep reading the Beck book and working on that, and I’ll keep a “what I ate” sort of food journal (instead of a “tracking” journal), but other than that, I’m going to try and eat more like I did in the early days of my college weight-loss.  If I find myself going off the deep end, I’ll dial it back, but you know . . . I don’t think I will go off the deep end.  I can’t help feeling pre-emptively RELIEVED, actually.  It would be nice not to have to spend an hour or two every night figuring out how many calories I’ve burned/eaten, and how many I’ll burn/eat tomorrow.  It would be nice to not think about what I can and can’t eat.  It would be nice not to freak out about fat or carbs or protein.  It would be nice not to think about ANY of it SO FREAKIN’ MUCH. 

You know.  Like it used to be.  Back before it wasn’t like that anymore.

TMI

No, really.  This is going to be WAY TMI.  But I don’t care.

MUHAHAHAhahahahahahaaaaaaa!

Oh, wait.  I wasn’t supposed to type that last part. 

Sometimes I think I’m not quite right in the head.  (Stop snickering.)  This week has been . . . well, weird.  Half my brain is Committed To Staying On Plan, and the other half of my brain is sneaking around, trying to eat crap food before the first half notices.

Half 1: “So, I’ve planned our meals for the week, and I know you like treats, so I made some of these low-cal brownies, and – HEY!!  WHERE DID 4 OF THOSE BROWNIES GO?!”

Half 2: “Brownies?  What brownies?  There are brownies?”

Half 1: “Don’t start with me, you know there were – HEY!  WHY ARE THERE BROWNIE CRUMBS ON YOUR FACE?!”

Half 2: *whistles innocently*

Half 1: “Now you’re just spitting brownie crumbs all over the place!!  KNOCK IT OFF!!”

I’ll give you three guesses which one’s winning, and the first two don’t count.

I was watching this go on (with the . . . THIRD half of my brain? now I’m REALLY worried), and wondering WTF it was all about.  And then I checked my calendar and realized that I’m about 10 days out from my period.  (See?  I TOLD you there would be TMI.  You should have stopped reading THEN.  Don’t complain about it now.)  I went through this last month, too: this one week where I would somehow manage to see a food, pick it up, put it in my mouth, chew and swallow – all before I even had a conscious thought about it.  There were literally a couple of times where I’d stand there and think, “I just ate that brownie.  Why did I eat that?  I don’t think I even really WANTED it.  It was just there.  Did I really just eat that?”  It’s kind of like a waking version of sleepwalking.  Weird.

And when I DO think about it, the Rebellious Child part of my brain (aka Half 2) just plunges ahead, anyway.  Most of the time I overrule her, but sometimes (I guess every week before my period starts) she’s extra-fast and super-determined.  So I stand in Starbucks, arguing with myself over whether I’m getting my usual Americano or whether I’m getting a soy mocha.  And I think I’ve won the argument.  Then I get to the counter and open my mouth and Rebellious Child bellows out, “One grande soy mocha, please!”  (Well.  At least I  was successful in veto-ing the largest size.)  And for just a moment, RC lives in the front of my head.  Almost literally: in those moments there is a sort of pressure in my forehead, the internal equivalent, I guess, to that willfullness and determination manifested most clearly by 2-year-olds.  And in that moment, while she takes over my brain, I can’t seem to activate the override button: I can’t seem to correct my order or just throw it out and re-order.  I will drink that damn soy mocha.

If this is really a hormonal thing, I’m going to have to start tracking it.  Meaning, if I know when it’s coming, I can plan for 2 things: harder workouts, and low-cal junk food.  I can drink hot chocolate soymilk from home with some instant coffee in it for a LOT fewer calories than there are in those mochas.  I’m wondering if I can psych out RC that way. 

On a related note (and ironically, considering that I just wrote a paragraph about psyching myself out and managing my RC):

I’ve been thinking a lot about small changes and sustainability and being happy with new behaviors and not setting the bar unreasonably high and BLAH BLAH BLAH.  But here’s my dilemma.  One of the (future) Beck assignments is on choice, or  more specifically, the lack thereof.  Basically her recommendation for some things is, take the option of the table.  It’s not a choice.  It’s not even on the MENU of choices to be made.  You’ve made your food plan and you really want an afternoon brownie that’s not on the plan?  No brownies for you.  No choice.

The thing is, to a certain extent, I do REALLY WELL with  “no choice.”  In my head the response is always, “Not an option,” and it allows me a certain level of calmness.  I’m not having the argument internally, so I’m not stressed.  It’s sort of an end-run around the RC negotiations.

And that works really well, right up to the point where it stops working COMPLETELY and I eat everything I can get my hands on all at one go.  It’s like 80% of the time it’s GREAT, it’s AWESOME and the other 20% of the time it’s a freakin’ DISASTER.  Now I realize that 80/20 doesn’t seem like a bad split, but that 20% is enough to undermine the ENTIRE 80% – it’s not like oops, I had an extra cookie.  It’s more like, “Fuck this, I’m eating those cookies and 4 brownies and a pound of pasta and 2 bacon-mayo sandwiches and steak broiled with gorgonzola cheese on top and what the hell, make some gorgonzola mac & cheese while I’m at it, and give me that bottle of wine.”  Not all at once, but over the course of a week or so: an extra coffee in the morning, a blended coffee in the afternoon, mac & cheese for dinner instead of something healthy.  And after a few days of that, it becomes enough to offset the other 80%. 

I’m trying now to figure out how to blend the two tactics: how do I know when to just declare, “Not an option” and when to negotiate?  Because for all the peace of mind I get with the former, the downfall is swift and brutal.  And the latter has less downfall, but the constant negotiations with RC leave me constantly anxious and stressed out.

Stuff to ponder . . .

Thinky Thoughts: Battle to the Death Edition!

Ok, before I jump in, I added Belle pictures to the other day’s post.  Yeah.  You’re welcome.  😉

So I think my neuroses and my “normal” self (selves?) are battling to the death in my head.  (Well, I HOPE it’s to the death, anyway.  ‘Cause what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and the LAST THING I NEED are stronger neuroses, ok?)

A couple of weeks ago I had a bad week.  Epically bad.  The kind of bad that made me stay home from work and cry.  And then I dragged myself kicking and screaming back on the proverbial wagon, and had a really GOOD week.

Three guesses how this week went, and the first two don’t count.

I set a goal to exerise every day in December.  Even 5 minutes counted: the point was EVERY DAY.  And I was doing pretty well.  For the first week.  And then last week, I had a migraine every day.  Let me repeat: I HAD A MIGRAINE.  EVERY.  SINGLE.  DAMN.  DAY.  There was no exercise.  There was a lot of scotch and a lot of dark rooms and a lot of weeping into pillows, wishing that the pain would STOP, GODDAMMIT, just freakin’ STOP ALREADY. 

I also didn’t make a meal plan this week.  And normally that’s not a disaster, but when I have a migraine and I think that my eyeball might fall out any minute, I don’t make the best choices.  So I ate a lot of crap that I wouldn’t normally eat.  Whoops.

And the thing is, I know the headaches are psychosomatic.  I KNOW they are.  Why do I know this?  Because every time I start to make positive changes, something happens.  I get injured, I have a mental breakdown, I feel so tired that I can’t keep “real” food down – SOMETHING. 

I’m a seriously emotional eater, and I know that some part of me is terrified of letting that go – how will I deal with stress if I don’t eat (or drink)?  I mean, I know the answer INTELLECTUALLY, but on a gut level, I really can’t conceive of dealing with stress any other way.  Food and stress have always been wrapped together for me: whether starving or bingeing or drinking, it’s how I have always dealt with life.  And I’m not sure how I’ll deal with life if I change.  I mean, I know I WILL deal with it, and at some point the way that I deal with it will seem as easy as eating does now, but from this vantage point I can’t see it.  Does that make sense?

So this weekend I had to take a really good look at what I CAN control.  When I can’t exercise, I can control my food intake.  When my stomach is upset, I can eat Chinese soup (with garlic and ginger and bok choy) instead of noodles and butter.  When I’m exhausted and only feel like eating sugar because my body needs something to run on (and it hasn’t gotten any sleep), I can drink a glass of chocolate soy milk instead of that enormous Starbucks mocha. 

There are always small things I can do better, and I think at this point, that might BE the point.  Even if the small things seem TOO small, I think the point might be to send my psyche the message that I’m not stopping.  This is for real.  This is permanent.  I am changing and I will not be dissuaded, migraines be damned. 

But *cue the whining* I just wish it didn’t have to be so haaaaaard.  And I really wish it didn’t entail this Battle to the Death that seems to be going on.  (And I really, REALLY wish that said Battle didn’t feel the need to sacrifice my left eyeball for the cause.  I think I wish that most of all.)

A Question of Motivation and Rewards

So, here’s the thing.  I read a lot of stuff that talks about rewarding yourself for challenges met and goals accomplished.  WW was big on that stuff, too.  And there seems to be a general consensus that you should not reward yourself with food, which, ok, I understand.  It sort of defeats the purpose of exercising (for weight loss, anyway) if you follow a 400-calorie burning exercise with a 2,000-calorie “reward” milkshake.  I get it. 

(Note: I don’t frankly think it defeats the whole purpose of exercise, though.  You’ll get the benefit of the exercise from a health standpoint whether or not you drink that milkshake afterward.  Drinking a milkshake does not cancel out the exercise.)

(I also have issues with the idea of thinking of food as something you have to “earn,” but that’s a post for a different day.  Probably a day when I’m feeling particularly ranty and cranky.)

(Ok, I’m coming back from my tangent, now.  I swear.  Whew!  That was close!)

And (back to “food as reward”) I also understand the idea that if you’re a binge eater or a compulsive overeater, or hell, just someone who eats when feeling ANY uncomfortable emotion, that it might not be such a good idea to encourage the mental patterns that are already part of a dysfunctional relationship with food by rewarding yourself with more food.

But.  (Oh, you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?)

I’ve been working on the Beck stuff (again, and still), and I’m working on setting small goals: 5 pounds at a time.  (That seems simultaneously like a HUGE number and an number that’s WAY too small.  Weird, I know.)  I’m supposed to be thinking of things I can reward myself with, but honestly I’m having a hard time coming up wth anything that I’m really interested in, other than – you guessed it – the occasional bowl of pasta for dinner.  I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, and I’m not going to drop a bunch of money every time I lose 5 pounds.  (Maybe 10 or 15, but 5? Not so much.) 

But I like to cook and I like to eat.  So I’m seriously thinking of having a pasta alfredo night (or something similar) every time I lose 5 pounds.  Not bingeing or “cheating.”  I’ll still add the calories in, and count them and weigh out the pasta.  Because see, here’s what I’m thinking.  Julie pointed out to me that if I eat 1200 calories every day, and then rebel and have a “fuck you” binge for say, 6000 calories, that gives me a total of 14,400 calories for the week.  Whereas if I ate 1800 calories every day, allowing myself some of the “bad” foods that I love so much, that gives me a total of 12,600.  Overall, I still come up 1800 calories LOWER than if I’d restricted and binged. 

Plus with the cooking aspect, there’s something I find soothing in the process.  Stirring cream so it doesn’t burn, melting the cheese in a little at a time, smelling the starch in the pasta start to soften as it cooks – it’s like drug-free Prozac for me.  And for that reason, I wouldn’t order out – pasta night would definitely be a make-it-myself night, on a night when I have an hour (or two, depending on what I’m cooking) to putter around in the kitchen, chopping, smelling, measuring, tasting, seasoning and re-seasoning, immersing myself in my senses. 

So, while I don’t necessarily want to eat that much food every day, I can’t help thinking that if I eat pasta alfredo (for instance), in a normal quantity, made traditionally (with butter and cream and cheese), and maybe a glass of wine – well, that’s going to add 1000 calories or so to my month (if I figure on losing 5 pounds a month), which calorically speaking, isn’t that much.  But PSYCHOLOGICALLY it makes a huge difference to me to be able to have those nights.  It makes the food less “forbidden” and makes me less likely to binge in the long term.    It’s kind of like the Intuitive Eating thing: knowing that I can have something when I want it actually makes me want it less often, because it’s not “off-limits.”  Does that make sense?  Does it sound like I’m just fooling myself?  I’m not sure.  Intuitively I think it’s an ok thing to do – and I might still think that even if every comment tells me it’s a bad idea, but at least I’d know to examine it pretty closely.

Thoughts?

In other news, my Beck assignment for tomorrow is to monitor my hunger closely, in order to learn to distinguish between hunger, desire and cravings.  That will be a pain in the ass, but I’ll do it.  I’m not sure I NEED to, but then again, my own judgement has landed me in my current situation, and this can’t hurt.  But the day after that is supposed to be skip-a-meal day (so you can learn that Hunger is Not an Emergency and that it can be tolerated), which I’m – well, skipping.  I’ve skipped meals before: I know that I can do it, but I also know that when my blood sugar gets low it either triggers a binge when I DO eat, or it triggers a period of starvation.  I’ve been really committed to doing all the steps in the Beck book, and I’ll do the rest of them, but this one is definitely playing with fire – at least for me.  (Then again, this is one I know well: I already know that I can go for long periods of time without food.  Hunger is not something I’m afraid of.  Being seduced by hunger?  That’s a WHOLE ‘nother story.)

Random Things – Including Some Improvement

Ok, random things first. 

I might be the only person left in the USA who hadn’t tried Jillian’s 30-Day Shred.  (Ok, except for MizFit, who I’m pretty sure still hasn’t tried it.)  First: if you love Jillian, as many do, you should take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt.  Ok, caveat over.  Regarding the DVD – the bad: Jillian is smug and a leeetle bit self-righteous.  The music sucks.  Neither Jillian nor her backup exercisers can find the beat of the sucky music either, so nothing – NOTHING I TELL YOU – has a discernible rhythm that is anything like the actual, you know, BEAT.  The ab work is not really enough to feel, let alone make a difference in strength.  It is also boring as all hell.

Now, the good: it is effective.  And it is 27 minutes long.  (The DVD says 20 minutes, but they lie.  I timed it.)  I got my heart rate up, broke a sweat and got enough strength training to feel a little sore the next day (in my arms and legs, anyway – see above re: inadequate ab work).  TWENTY. SEVEN. MINUTES. PEOPLE.  I will forgive a LOT of things for a 27-minute workout that actually WORKS.  Something tells me that this DVD, despite all the aforementioned sucky parts, will go into medium-heavy rotation in my workout schedule, especially on days when I have NO TIME.  And it’s effective enough that I will not feel ONE BIT GUILTY about a workout that is so short.

Now, on to other things.  I worked out this morning, so day 2 of the December exercise streak is still intact.  (I did the aforementioned Shred, to be precise.)  And I did some Beck stuff.  The last thing I left off doing was the exercise plan.  I got hung up on the fact that I couldn’t come up with the PERFECT plan.  So now, here’s the plan: get some exercise every day.  That’s it.  For now, I’m not going to be any pickier than that, and the extent of my planning will be, “what do I feel like doing this morning?”  (If the answer is “nothing,” I’ll probably end up doing T’s make-your-own-circuit.)  I’m also working on setting small goals, and planning to lose weight SLOWLY.  Which sucks, for those of us who like things NOWNOWNOW.  But NOWNOWNOW has gotten me where I AM nownownow, so maybe it’s not the best plan.  New plan, then: laterlaterlater.  Or at least, slowerslowerslower.  I’d like to lose 5 pounds before Jan. 1, although 4 would be good too, considering that the holidays are full of weight-loss pitfalls and family stress.  Fingers crossed.

Um.  I think that’s all for now.  Mostly because I’m freakin’ tired and am off to bed.  But overall, I’m feeling better – if by “better” you mean, “WAY more mentally stable,” which, at the moment, I do.

Thank You

Thank you to the folks who commented on my last post.  I was really floundering, and you helped a lot.  T even left a comment with a make-your-own-circuit, which I TOTALLY did tonight.  It took me 8 minutes, and the thought of doing it made me want to cry, but I figured I could do anything for 2 circuits.  So I did.  And it helped: it was one less thing to feel like I’d failed at, which I TOTALLY NEEDED TONIGHT.  So, thanks, T!

In other news, look!  A Christmas theme!  Now when they add the “snow” that falls, I’ll be REALLY excited.  😀

In still OTHER other news, I did my 8-minute workout tonight, and I made dinner.  Both of those things were big for me tonight.  Now I’m off to re-read some of my Beck book.  I’m catching up again, since I got hung up on the exercise chapter and then GROUND TO A HALT on the “realistic goal” chapter.  Ahem.  So I’m putting some things back together.  I’ve been carting my food journal around without actually writing in it.  Turns out it doesn’t work by osmosis.  Damn.  So I need to start doing that again.  And the exercise.  And getting enough sleep.  But at least I feel like I’m covered for food and exercise the rest of the week.  So I can focus on getting enough water, enough sleep, and tracking my journal.  Those are the big things. 

And I really need to give some thought to how exactly I am going to motivate myself going forward.  How to drag my ass through the day when I’m struggling.  I’m not sure how to do that yet, but obviously I need to consider it.

At the moment, my mood has swung pretty far back toward “manageable.”  Tune in tomorrow to see if it sticks!  *rolls eyes*

Successes and Setbacks

Well, after my great weekend, I had a slip-up last night.  A friend came over that I hadn’t seen in months, and we stayed up really late – REALLY late – drinking wine and talking.  Between the 2 of us we polished off 3 bottles of wine, and I went to bed at 2:30 in the morning.  Needless to say, I did not get a workout in this morning.  Ahem.  And then, since my stomach was so upset from the wine, I ended up eating more fat and starch than I normally do, to settle it. 

But (in the success column) I did my best to mitigate the damage as much as possible.  So I had a breakfast burrito, and I added mayo to it (I know most people think that’s gross, but I love it), but I had a whole-wheat tortilla with spinach and egg whites (along with the cheese).  And at lunch I had a chicken quesadilla, but I also had a salad.  And I had some soup and crackers for dinner, which wasn’t horrible.  AND (cue the drumroll) I came home and TOTALLY did my exercise DVD, so that I didn’t get sucked into the whole “I can’t do this, I don’t know why I even bother trying” mindfuck.

So it’s kind of a draw.  And since I haven’t been drinking habitually, I’m not so worried about last night.  (It was a lot of wine, but we drank it over about 8 hours, along with a lot of water.  Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely drunk by the end of the night – I’m a lightweight – but it wasn’t the same as drinking a bottle and a half of wine over the course of 2 or 3 hours.) 

Also, I’ve been slacking a little bit on my Beck stuff.  I keep conveniently “forgetting” to read the affirmations, and to sit down while I eat.  I *am* getting better about giving myself credit for the good behaviors instead of just beating myself up about my setbacks (see above re: what I did right today), but overall my behaviors are starting slowly to slide back toward my “normal.”  And that is not acceptable to me. 

So I have to get back on track.  I got hung up on the “exercise” chapter, but I think I’m getting a handle on that now.  I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have to do it perfectly, and that right now, something is better than nothing.  And I REALLY have to keep telling myself that I can always revise my plan next week or the week after or the week after that.  It’s not written anywhere that whatever I come up with now I have to stick with FOREVER.  Um, right.  I have a tendency to forget that. 

So, back to work.  Which is in itself a big win for me: having a setback, and not letting it derail me altogether.  Huh.  I just realized that.  That makes me kind of proud of myself.  😀

Whew!

First, thank you all for weighing in (ha! I’m so punny!) on the last couple of posts.  It was helpful to get some feedback on that, so I really appreciate it!

In other news, I went to see my mom this weekend, and we did NOT drink, EVEN THOUGH we went over to my late grandpa’s house, and I was kind of a wreck afterward.  I actually poured a glass of scotch and then decided to have dinner before I drank it.  And I had dinner, and then decided I didn’t “need” the alcohol.  So . . .

YAY, ME!!!

(Although there was some butter-laden popcorn involved.  But frankly, I considered that a “win” over the scotch, so I was ok with it.)

And we went to lunch on Saturday AND Sunday, and both days I ordered something reasonably healthy.  (I had quiche and salad on Sunday to settle my stomach – I needed a little grease – but I did NOT have french fries, so again, a partial win there.)

This week is Exercise Week.  I already planned out all my workouts for the week (even Thanksgiving Day).  I have mostly exercise DVDs, and in an effort not to feel overwhelmed, I purposely only chose ones that were 30 minutes or shorter.  For now, that seems more manageable, and 6 days of 30 minutes is still 3 hours of exercise this week, so I’m good with it.  In a few weeks I’ll go back to 45-60 minutes, but for the moment, this is good.  It’s not “all-or-nothing,” which is a HUGE improvement over my usual methodologies, so hooray!  🙂

How was your weekend?

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!