Week Two Weigh-In

Since I am not being an obsessive calorie tracker as I was previously in my lifetime of weight battles, I will show you what my Sunday looked like with the freedom of not being tied to numbers. I am well-practiced in excusing why I eat what I do so let's see how I apply my own little brand of nutrition logic to my day:

*Papa Murphy's chicken-artichoke-spinach pizza, thin crust. One piece for breakfast. One for lunch. One for snack. Solid effort on my part, as the crust was thin and I limited myself to one piece per meal which, uh, is usually not the case. Basically this was the equivalent of eating salad again and again, by my standards. I almost forgot the garlic - enough to kill any vampire within a five-county radius. There. Vegetables being consumed with every bite.
*Coldstone's kid-size black cherry yogurt with almonds. The almonds were added as a post-hike protein punch and since I refrained from slamming down the remains of my daughter's ice-cream upon finishing my own, I believe I get extra points there. I stuck to a tiny serving of yogurt rather than the Gotta Have It size of Peanut Butter Cup Perfection with extra peanut butter and extra peanut butter cups. That was the old me. The new me eats tiny servings of probiotics as dessert. BOOM.
*Two turkey franks with organic ketchup, no bun. Simply put, there could not be a more virtuous meal. Side note: organic ketchup. That cracks me up.

Alrighty then. It's a wild guess, but I'm going to go out on a limb and conclude that somewhere along the way, I am going to have to pick up some decent eating habits. The small meals concept I've got down, though it's probable that the small meals should not be small junk-food meals. The way I ate yesterday is what I would normally consider a Healthy Eating Day. This would be the kind of day that would not incite that "morning after" panic I spoke of before; rather, this kind of day would be a cause for celebration and probably lead immediately into a Cheat Day. Surely all of those amazing choices must have made room for a cupcake to be enjoyed as a reward, right? And maybe some Junior Mints? Enter my nutrition logic. Made-up, nonsensical whims put together by a woman who loves an excuse to take a plan, stomp it, mangle it, slather it with frosting and swallow it down. Cut to the morning after panic, and thus the cycle continues.

I would love to say, "Not this time. No way. I got this." But nobody knows me better than I do and while I give myself full credit for having an amazing week, I also know that it is easier for me at the beginning - that's why I always have so many of them. Beginnings. There really isn't an Old Me and a New Me - there is only the Me I know how to be, and that person is one who will likely trip and fall straight into a bag of doughnuts once or twice over the course of this whole process. I've had nearly forty years of perfecting some pretty lousy habits and there is no way that old wisdom about three weeks making better habits applies to me. It will be a day in, day out effort of doing what I can to succeed but not only that, forgiving myself when things don't go particularly smooth. I had a great first week and I am motivated to keep it going - this is where the responsibility for my own outcomes figures into the plan. Now not only do I have to keep my eyes on the goal of what I have yet to lose, I also have to make sure I don't re-gain what I've lost so far. I tend to see a little bit of success, relax, have something that involves a lot of cheese and derail a mighty train before it even has a chance to really pick up steam. That is not how I see this thing playing out. I have big plans, and I plan to go big. With that, I give you my Week Two Weigh-In (from 200.4 lbs.):

Progress, I Think...

Five days in so far on my “Fifty by Forty” quest, and I’m clocking in at about 80% good choices, 20% Gardetto’s. Those little guys are a direct result of the fact that I love carbs and I’ve been a blitzed-out ball of stress and wildness with things going on both at work and at home, so then comfy, soothing (chewy OR crunchy) bread and cracker-type products were leaned on a little too heavily this week. Well, maybe not so much crackers – more like spaghetti. There were two nights of spaghetti. The main thing is that I tracked all of it, as I said I would. Every bite. What’s interesting is that my food vs. exercise balance put me at a calorie deficit every day which was great (though again, not focusing so much on calories), but I only had one day this week that I can say I actually had consistently good nutrition. A couple of Egg White Delights snuck in due to early mornings at work, and then my snacking wasn’t well thought-out, which resulted in things like eating a whole can of lite peaches in about 5.8 seconds. I think I may have freaked out my daughter a little bit one evening, eyeing her a little too intently after dinner as she ate two cookies. Only because they looked like two sweet, chocolate discs of Heaven disguised as mere shortbread. Eating on the fly, eating in the car, eating at my desk – the biggest pattern seems to be that I’m eating without thought, to my food or to my environment, because I’ve just been going, moving, doing, and generally just eating without mindfulness. I think that will be a great place for me to start next. Slowing myself down enough that I can be aware of my surroundings, my emotions and what’s going on so that I actually notice what I’m eating. If I hadn’t been tracking this week, all I would remember is the Gardetto’s. Curse the person who introduced me to Gardetto’s.

I had initially planned on posting links to my food diary to really amp up the accountability, but that would require me to know my way around the mystery that is formatting a blog. Nevermind that I’ve had my other blog since 2002 and I could have probably mastered the little things by now. I’ll get there. In the meantime, I have decided that I will post a weigh-in every Monday. Facebook knows where I started last week [cough! 200.4! cough! cough!], so I think it will be nice to see a little bit of victory happening. And even if I don’t see it, I am starting to feel it. I feel like I have a little more energy, which was helpful this week since I am completely drained mentally, and I generally have a better attitude. As much as I hate to admit it - and I have no scientific proof to back this up other than my own instinct (okay, and the articles I keep reading in Shape magazine) – I think it is due to the extreme lack of processed sugar this week. Other than a couple of 45-calorie popsicles and a fruit snack animal my little one politely “shared” with me from the depths of her car seat, I really had no sugar beyond fruit. I almost feel like I am betraying sugar by revealing this dark fact, but sugar makes me moody. It makes me strung out and a little spazzy. In that, “Ohhhh, now I see what you were talking about” way when you realize your mom was right when she was always lecturing you about too much sugar. As a kid I would have brushed my teeth with sugar, and who’s to say, if they ever make it into a toothpaste…

In the words of James Brown, “I feel good!”

First Day

Every morning starts the same: I hit the snooze button too many times, remind myself that I have GOT to change that damn Wiz Khalifa ring tone and head to the bathroom. Sneaking the door closed, the hot light from the dressing room-style bulbs washes over me and as my brain starts whirring to life, the feeling of dreadful forgetfulness signals the advent of day. “What did I eat yesterday? Wait, what did I eat last NIGHT? Did I have any binges? How much damage did I do?” A flurry of frantic questions race through my mind as I start to piece together the remains of the previous 24-hours. Like an alcoholic trying to figure out, “How drunk WAS I?!?”, I mentally size-up the food choices from the day before and assemble it all to determine if I’ve started a great new streak of health or if I’ve bombed again and should just throw myself head first into a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes. Once in a great while, it’s the former but usually the sad shame from the sleepy brown eyes in the mirror lets me know that I am beginning another day on the heels of another failure. “Everything is better in the morning. Tomorrow is another day. Today is a new beginning.” For me, every sunrise holds promise: the promise that I make to myself to change. Then by the time the light shifts and the shadows slide back into darkness, that promise has usually been chewed up and choked down along with countless calories, leaving me alternately full and empty, and exhausted by myself.

I usually avoid the scale, especially when I know I've been out of control, but something made me get on today. I alternate between checking my weight religiously and completely ignoring it. I don't like to live by the numbers because they are just that - numbers - but at some point, ignorance is no longer bliss. My fail safe guide is when my clothing gets too tight and at the rate I've gone lately, I've sped right past too tight straight into borrowing cast-off clothes from my mom. Clothes that no longer fit her because she has been taking charge of her own health and clocking some amazing progress. So it's worked out well for both of us as she reaps the well-deserved benefits of her hard work and I get to move right into the clothes that she no longer needs. But also, I'm borrowing clothes from my mom. There are a few things wrong with that, but let's focus. Basically, things are not going well and I need to figure out how to flip that around and actually learn to LIVE well. I'm tired all the time, I'm cranky, I'm uncomfortable, I'm out of shape and I am so ready to no longer be any of those things. But I also know that I have been "so ready" so many times that it will never be as simple as making a declaration that "I'm done!" and I'll just magically figure it all out. By acknowledging that I know there will be bumps in the road, I'm hoping that I can better handle them and just keep going rather than let those bumps detour me down roads that become so twisted I can no longer find my way back. I have lots of big plans for how this is going to happen, though I haven't exactly thought out all of the strategies yet. What I do know is I have my goal and I need to start immediately. It's the same goal I've had since I had my daughter: I want to be in the best shape of my adult life by the time I'm forty. That's it. Simple and yet impossibly complex, given the way I tend to complicate matters by any means possible. All for another post but for the time being, this is where I will start. Or rather, where I plan to end up. Fit, healthy and rockin' it by the time I turn forty. There are many other numbers I will be working toward - seconds I can hold a plank, amount of burpees I can bust out in one minute - but my path to wellness will begin with Fifty by Forty. Fifty pounds lost by my birthday, which is in June. I have ten months, which seems both like an infinity and a hot second at the same time. It's not because I think 50 pounds is the key to happiness, but simply because I know deep down when I really allow myself to think about what I can achieve, I know that truly, I can do it. The time frame is just the added kick to get me moving at a little higher rate than couch speed.

Some plans will be: accountability through this blog. So incredibly scary but I'm hoping it will be helpful in unlocking some of the madness, dealing with it and leaving it behind. Pictures: at this point far too horrifying to think about, but for now I will say I'm considering it. My toes on the scale on Facebook was a big enough start for a while, I think. Food tracking: I jump back and forth on this one because years ago I lost a lot of weight through calorie-tracking, which started out innocently enough and soon devolved into a type of mania I don't want to get back into. I think my resistance to going back to that extremely regimented life is partially why I am so heavy now. I keep waiting to fall into healthy habits naturally, without thinking, and that has completely not been happening. Having a chili-cheese burrito as a post-workout snack is definitely a habit, but it is certainly not healthy or natural. Er, well, I guess it is to me, but I am working on that being the old me. So I will track, not my calories per say but moreover the how, the when, the why I eat. I vow to be honest about every bite, every snack, every king-size movie goodie. I need to see what I'm taking in so I can amend the way I eat, not just what I eat.

I'm not going to strive for perfection or for some crazy ideal I couldn't possibly live up to. But I am going to finally strive for change. I will work every day to make the changes so that I can see the changes. So that I can feel the changes. To be happier, healthier and more present in my life - to have those things, I won't wait until forty. I know I've waited too long already. And so it begins.