Trash Day Weigh-In

Yep, it's trash day guys and gals.  That means one thing: I get to weigh today.  So as the water was heating for my shower this morning, I sprinted upstairs and got out the scale.  Slipped out of my slippers and stood naked on the scale and it said:  212.8.  Yippee!

I am not disappointed with that number at all.  In the last 43 days, I have lost 7 lbs.  For me, that's great, especially with the holiday treats and snacking lately.  My body feels different again.  A lot of my new pants and skirts are hanging on me - again.  Time to buy more.   Ugh!

As much as I love shopping, I'm kind of tired of shopping for clothes these days.  It's hard when you feel so terrific and you go shopping and find that the clothes you SHOULD wear as a 52-year-old woman are just not what you want to wear.  I want to wear fun, flirty clothes, but I don't want to look like a middle-aged tramp.  Need to find a store with fun, trendy clothes for the older woman who feels 25.  Know of a store like that?

I am having a great time buying shoes, however.  I have always loved shoes.  I can remember when I was in middle school when the JC Penney or Sears catalog would arrive in the mail.  I would dig straight to the shoes section and dream of owning all of them.  My Mom never bought me any from the catalog, so all I had were dreams of shoes.  Once I got a job in high school, I started buying myself all kinds of shoes.  Right now I just love buying all kinds of colors with wild embellishments on them.  I am still looking for the perfect pair of red CFM pumps with a 3-4" heel.  Oh yeah, baby!  Someday I'll take a picture of my shoe collection for you. 

So I leave this post feeling sassy and thin.  I'm craving garbanzo beans today for some reason.  Guess I'd better get the hummus from the fridge and snack on that. 

I hope "shoe" have a great day!

I've Got It!

It just hit me today. 

 

I've been trying to think why I've been eating all day every day.  I don't mean overeating, like yesterday, but eating, SNACKING, all day every day.  It's because when I'm hungry, I don't eat until I'm full.  I'm only eating until I've satisfied the urge to eat.  That shit has got to stop.

 

Now that I'm aware of it, I can do something about it.  I was thinking it was just what my stomach wanted, or thought maybe it was just what my eating just is now, but no.  A few months ago, I was eating 3-4 meals a day and I was doing fine.  Something changed and the snacking began.

 

Starting today, I've changed it.  I ate my hummus and pita for breakfast and for lunch I had buffalo meatloaf (can you say YUMMY) and some steamed broccoli.  I have leftover meatloaf and broccoli for another meal or two, too.  I ate until I was comfortably full and not a bite beyond.  I did drink a little tea before and after lunch, but not too much, so my food should stay with me for awhile. 

 

I need to feed my thirst as well.  I'm noticing I'm thirsty more often now for some reason.  I crave something ice cold.  My first reaction is to ignore it since I hate drinking water, but the need to have some liquid in me over-rides that feeling of ignoring it.  I'll get better at the water drinking.  That will definitely help with weight loss, too, since it has slowed down quite a bit these past few months.

 

I'm having a great day.  I feel my eyes are wide open and I'm ready for 2010.  Bring it on, baby!

Terrible Food Day But It's Over

I had a terrible food day yesterday and I have to blog this so I remember that I do have bad days.  That those old food days are still around.

 

I woke up and was not hungry, but wanted my morning coffee and then the food spiral started.  I just ate and ate and ate whatever I wanted.  All day long, every couple of hours, I ate something, and not something good, either.  I ate crackers and cheese.  I ate apple cobbler.  I drank TWO diet sodas in one day.  I ate a chocolate square.  More crackers.  Half a turkey with swiss sandwich.  I just ate and ate and ate. 

 

Thing is, I know why I ate.  I was lonely and bored.  John had to work on this Sunday, but it wasn't because I missed him.  Hey, we've been married 22 years, we're not newlyweds.  So that wasn't it.  I was more lonely from being bored. 

 

I surfed the web for hours while sitting on the couch watching HGTV.  Did that for like 4 hours.  Then I knit for awhile.  More web surfing.  Cleaned out the magazine rack.  Watched a movie.  All boring.  I wanted to be entertained and no one was entertaining me!  LOL   Oh, and I stayed in my jammies all day.  Yes, the same jammies I wore all night the night before, I stayed in all day and then slept in them again!  My husband must think I'm losing it.

 

The last straw eating-wise, was when I had another helping of the apple cobbler after 9pm.  I let my brain go into never-never land and serve up a big portion.  A big portion is approximately 1 cup.  That's big for me.  So I ate and ate until I could feel my stomach start to get sick.  Then I took another bite.  Ugh.  Then another.  Finally, I stopped because I didn't want to throw up.  Is that my breaking point now?  Keeping myself from throwing up?  Hmmm.

 

Thing is, as I was eating all day, I never ate to fullness.  Only snacked on things.  A bite here, a nibble there.  Not that that was good or better.  No!  I was just stuffing feelings with little bits of food.  What I should've done was go for a walk or something, but then that would've meant I had to get out of my warm jammies.  I know I would've felt better, but I just didn't want to do it.  I can't even say what I was feeling other than boredom or loneliness.  Is that enough of a reason to eat?  I need to stay away from those feelings, that's for sure. 

 

Oh and before I forget:  I took a lot of little naps yesterday.  I'm trying to figure out what food makes me so sleepy.  Is it the sugar?  The carbs?  I don't know, but whatever it is, it makes me so sleepy that I can't help but fall asleep.  I must've taken 4 or 5 little (30 minute) naps during the day.  Is this a form of dumping?  I will ask the surgeon on my visit on January 12.

 

So here we are, 24 hours later and I'm much better.  I'm working on my morning coffee and I'm not even hungry yet.  No desire to snack today.  Except for blogging about food, I'm not even thinking about it.  Of course, I'm at work and that helps, but still. 

 

I'm not scared that the one day of mindless eating will become a habit.  No, I know better than that.  I know my resources and my support.  If I find myself slipping more than a day, I will call in the troops. 

 

Here's what's bugging me

Wait, before we get to what's bugging me, let's get the weight thing off the list:  214.4 as of yesterday.  That's a good thing.  Yes, I know it wasn't trash day, but I felt different so I weighed myself. 

Ok, so here's the THING.  Big big white elephant in the room.  My room.  I don't believe in Christmas.  Well, wait, only the pagan part of Christmas.  I don't believe in Jesus, Mary or Joseph, Muhammad or any other religious icon.  I just don't believe.  There, I said it.  I am agnostic.  I believe there is something out there that helps guide the universe, but not a religious person/icon/whatever.  I can't put my faith in something that I really honestly don't believe in.  OMG the roof did not cave in when I said that.

When I hear the religious Christmas songs, I cannot sing along.  Years ago, my favorite song was O Holy Night and that was only because my Dad used to sing it or better yet, whistle to it and that made me feel good inside.  Not the words or the meaning of the song, but my Dad doing what he did. 

It's hard for me to say I don't believe in Jesus because there are some people that will say, "I'll pray for you."  Please don't.  Will that "save" me?  Will that keep me from going to "hell"??  I don't think so.  I believe that living a full, honest life will get you good karma in the next life.  That when I die, I want to be able to feel that I've done a good job with the life and the body that I've been given, and if I haven't, then I guess I'll have to come back and do it over again. 

I'm not such a non-believer that I think your religion is bogus.  Nope.  If you believe with your whole heart that what your church is teaching you, then I'm happy for you.  Really.  It's just not for me. 

It's so free-ing to be able to say that I don't believe in God, and the thing is, if you do and you feel badly for me, so be it.  We can still coexist with religious differences.  I only wish the world could have the same understanding and just live together instead of fighting wars over who's God is the highest trump card.

All that being said, it makes me feel good inside.  Like I've let go of a bad habit.  Like if I was a smoker or drinker and I no longer smoke or drink.  It doesn't have a hold on me any longer.  Like I'm no longer tied to food as a crutch, I don't need religion the same way. I feel FREE!

This does tie back in to the food issue.  I've had to let go of some pretty awesome habits, and now I've had the courage to let this one go, too.  Love it.  Like I don't have to have religion to be a whole person.  I don't need all that food as comfort when I can comfort myself without it.  Same with religion.

So on to Christmas we go.  I'll sing about Frosty and Rudolph and you can sing about Jesus or your God or whomever you pray to.  Just enjoy the holiday as a time to be with family and eat some fudge.

Size Does Matter

Today is Thursday.  That means yesterday was trash day.  I weighed in at 215.  OMG, do you know how long it's been since I've weighed 215?  No?  Me, neither. 

And guess what I did today?  I got my fanny into a SIZE 18 JEANS!!  Yes, they are a little bit snug, but they fit and they look good.  When I look in the mirror, I can't believe that my hips shrunk enough to squeeze into regular jeans.  I've been wearing elastic-waist pants for so long, it's almost weird to have button and zipper pants again.

So what did this new pants size do to my brain?  Amazing things.  I feel "normal".  I feel like, and I CAN, fit into anything in my drawers and closet.  You know how it is, you have clothes of different sizes in your closet for when you gain a few pounds or lose a few.  I know.  I've been there.

My weight hovered around 221 for so long that I thought I was going to stay there.  I was feeling a bit discouraged, but not overly so.  I mean after losing over 50 lbs so quickly after surgery, it is disappointing to stay at a certain weight for about a month.  Ugh.

I didn't know what to do to make the weight start coming off again, so I went to the message boards at thinnertimes.com and read what the other people did when it happened to them.  They did anything from going back to basics (very small, soft foods, frequent meals) to increasing exercise to eating more to stimulate the body.  I honestly tried a few days of each to see what I felt comfortable doing and then, probaby coincidentally, my weight started dropping again.  Whatever it was that stimulated the weight loss, great!

I know size 18 is not model size, but I feel like a model today.  I feel so ALIVE today.  Is it because of the 18 moment?  Maybe.  Maybe it's all about being 215.  I don't know.  All I know is SIZE DOES MATTER today and I feel great. 

If you want to see the BEFORE pictures, click HERE.

Incredulous!

Today is trash day.  The day I get to weigh.  I got on the scale and my jaw dropped.  I got off the scale and then back on "just in case" the scale goofed the weight the first time.  I weigh 217!

I was stuck in the 221-224 range for a couple of months and I was getting tired of it.  Plateaus are no fun and tries my patience.  So what changed?

Me.  There must've been some life lesson that was keeping me in that weight range and as soon as I acknowledged "I don't know what lesson I need to learn or what is keeping me here, but I acknowledge you and want to move on" it, then the weight dropped off.  Four pounds of it.

I'm so happy today.  I want to remember this feeling.  I will remember this feeling when the next plateau hits and remind myself that the feeling will be back.

For now, I'm off to buy some new shoes (nice reward, right?) and will exercise my tushie off on the bike tonight. 

TTFN!