Friday, August 17, 2018

On the Sixth Day...


Oh my gosh, it's been a week.

I have many thoughts, but right now I am in a food stupor. We'll see how it goes.

Let me start with the fact that I've been largely removing sugar from my diet since Sunday, with few exceptions (OK, so a bottle of sparkling moscato one night, a single bite of a peanut butter cookie my partner made himself, and a tiny square of super dark chocolate, for example). But seriously, this is a big change from my usual M.O. and has been quite challenging. At the same time, I've done pretty well with it. I'd really like to keep sugar as more a very occasional thing, and to not be so in need of it as I feel I have been in the past.

Today was my roughest day and I think it was a combo of sugar withdrawal and PMS. Joyous, right? I felt uncomfortable in my skin all day long, and toward the end of the day I was finding it harder and harder to be a regular person among other people (i.e. my lovely co-workers who are in fact lovely people). By 3:45, I just had to excuse myself from my desk under the pretense of "I have to make a phone call" and go sit in my car and recline and meditate and just close my eyes and try to talk myself down from whatever it was I felt was taking me over. 15 minutes later I felt better enough to finish out the last hour of the day, but man – I couldn't get out of there fast enough, and thank goodness it was Friday on top of that.

I've been taking notes about how I feel during the day every day this week. I wanted to track my cravings, my feelings, my thoughts as I went along, and in a desk job like mine that is easy. So I have pages of notes about what I ate and all the stuff that goes along with it.

One of the questions I have this week is, How should I eat? How do I want to eat? Do I really want to cut certain things out of my diet all together? Do I need to? I am going to continue to experiment as I have in the past, but I would definitely like to keep on the path of avoiding as much sugary stuff as I can.

So far I'm down about 4 pounds, though the max was 6.5 – the day after that I was back up 2 after losing 4 overnight, go figure! This is pretty typical for me. I have a lot to lose and when I put in a concentrated effort I lose fast at first.

I went a bit off the rails for dinner tonight. We did take-out for the first time this week, and I'm drinking beer. Hey, apparently the sugar in beer is NOT the bad kind. This is what my research tells me. I'm kind of like whatever after today, to be honest. I needed an off-the-rails evening tonight and I won't feel bad about it.

Oh! And another factor is... PMS. I'm all crampy and bloated which throws me off the weight-loss game. I think next week will be more interesting, then, without all those crazy hormones going on.

Whatever – I am pleased that I have set on a path in the right direction and that I am building better eating habits as a start.

More thoughts to come, as well as images of my journal notes! I would love to hear from you!

Monday, August 13, 2018

Day 2 News

Day 2! Day 2.

Yesterday went well. Today is almost over and it went well, too. Now I just have to do it hundreds of times over, again and again.

But, well, for now... I'm taking it one day at a time. It's the only way to do it.

I am doing the weighing every day thing, and so far, I'm down just a half pound. Honestly, though? It's not really even the priority, which sounds funny, I know. What really matters to me right now is getting back into the habits I need to get back into in order to do this successfully. Yeah – eating reasonable portions, cooking more, drinking less alcohol, eating much less sweet stuff, and easing into a more active life again.

Today I had breakfast (an egg McMuffin, which is pretty much a perfect food, LOL), lunch (a frozen meal I bought with a coupon a couple weeks ago, it was OK and did in a pinch, which is what I was in), and a homemade dinner – a middle-eastern inspired chicken and chickpea stew with brown rice. I drank the last diet soda I have in the house (Fresca, which is AWESOME, by the way). I'm trying to stick to around 1800 cals a day, and right now I'm well under and I'm not sure I'll eat anything else, whatever.

This week my goal is to not eat excess sugar (like, fruit is OK, but no obvious sweets and keeping an eye out on packaged foods labels to avoid it). I want to see what happens. One of my best friends quit sugar a year ago with amazing results – she has so much energy she doesn't know what to do with it all! This is an experiment and we'll see how far I can (or want) to take it.

I started meditating again (I. Am.), and I gave my hair a trim using the unicorn method, which is super easy and really effective for long hair! I am loving it.

Anyway, onward and upward!

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Just Like Starting Over

Helloooo!

Anyone still out there?

*crickets*

I guess y'all probably imagined that I just totally gave up on things, and honestly? You'd be at least partially right. I kind of did there, for a few months. Sad to say, mad to say, but true. Yesterday became the breaking point, though, and my partner and I decided that we really need to get back to healthier eating and a better lifestyle in general again, and it starts... not Monday, nope. It starts today.

This morning was a pretty lazy one and I wasn't out of bed until 11 or so, but I made up for it as soon as I was up and running, starting with tidying up the kitchen some, including cleaning up the fridge a bit and taking inventory. I threw out the last of my latest bag of gummi bears, but parsed out the rest of my party-sized bag of Smartfood (cheddar cheese popcorn) into baggies of single servings. I worked on piles of stuff around the house – mostly sorting mail into the recycling – and started a load of laundry. I figured out what to make for dinner (pork chops and sweet potatoes) and mowed the front lawn. Once I got to the tiny, now jungle-like back yard, the mower crapped out and I couldn't get it to restart so I'll try again tomorrow evening. I swept the grass clippings.

I'm basically trying to create a relatively clean slate for myself. "Today is the first day of the rest of my life," etc. I'd been becoming more and more frustrated and angry about things being harder to do in my daily life again. I was super disappointed to be breathing more heavy taking a flight of stairs. I'm embarrassed and disgusted that bathroom stuff is difficult again. Like, WTF?

We've been eating all willy-nilly lately and drinking pretty liberally, too. Neither activity is very helpful to feeling good. My lunches have been out of control – i.e. getting take out every day – not good for the belly fat nor my bank account.

First step was getting a list together of dinners that we like and that are healthy and relatively low-cal, which for us at this point is anything below 1000 calories. I've resolved to get Subway for lunch once or twice a week but to not get cookies. I usually get a turkey breast or roast beef sub with all the veggies topped with red vinegar, so I'm good with that. It's something I really enjoy and it fits pretty well into the kind of lifestyle I want for myself. On the rest of the days, though – I really need to get that figured out. Portions will be important. My partner is planning to go back to having a can of beans (pinto or red or pink) for his lunches, and I think I might do the same along with a serving of brown rice and some avocado or something. Variations on that sort of thing. Veggies too.

I haven't been eating breakfast at all but I don't think that's been working well for me, because by the time I eat lunch I'm super hungry and tend to overeat. A lot. Sometimes then I will skip dinner or have a "snack," but it all ends up being too much. I have done intermittent fasting in the past and liked it, but I think for now I am going to try the three square meals thing and see where it takes me. For breakfast I'm thinking overnight oats and things like eggs baked in muffin tins or something.

I've been drinking a lot of diet soda again, so I also want to make water a priority.

I'm not going to worry too much about adding exercise in just yet, but I do want to start taking walks again regularly.

The good news is that I have kept off a 30 pound loss for about three years. The bad news is that I'm starting at 342 pounds when not too long ago I was well under 300.

So. It's just like starting over. I'm mad at myself but I also know that I can do this.

I'm doing it because I need to feel better physically, first and foremost. Carrying around this much weight does not feel good. I'm excited to be on my way to healing myself again.