You Meally Got Me Now

Went to the ol’ gym today but I did things a little differently. Instead of driving there, I walked/jogged! It’s almost exactly a mile away from my house. And I know what you’re thinking: “you’ve been driving all these other times!?!?”…Yep. I’m kind of embarrassed about it which is why I have never mentioned how far away my gym is. It’s a what, 2 minute drive from door to door? But really, I’m embarrassed about it in a carbon footprint kind of way, not even a “get in extra exercise for nothing” way. Meh.

ANYWAY. So I would say on the way there I jogged about half. When I got to the gym I did 6 weight machines in total, and then did some bicep/tricep stuff with free weights. About halfway through my time there I got on the elliptical for 10 minutes because I wanted to get my heart rate back up but also because I was bored. On the way home I walked the whole time. I was tired!

So it was a good workout. And I think I jogged faster than usual because I’m still kind of wheezy. It’s really attractive when I try and laugh and end up coughing and hacking. GENTLEMEN, LOOK NO FURTHER. I’m right here. *wink*. *cough* (And actually, keep reading gents because I talk about my boobs.)

I got two NSVs and a microphone motivator:

NSV: Crossing my legs again. It’s just barely possible. But they can stay there on their own whereas before I either couldn’t do it or had to push my leg against something else to keep it from sliding off the other one. That was one of the more embarrassing things because being able to cross my legs (despite reading articles about how it’s bad for you, causing veins or whatever) makes me feel more womanly. I don’t do it often because of said articles, but still. I like being able to do it again.

Another (kind of tmi) NSV: My bras seem to be properly fitting now, bordering on getting a bit loose. When I bought them I was still kind of stuffing into them, I should have gone one size up. But now they fit, the clasps are on the tightest row and when I wear them, there is a space in between my boobs. I covet that space. I’m cool with having bigger boobs, but when they’re just smooshed and stuffed into each other they don’t seem appealing to me. That little bit of space that separates them, that’s what enhances the cleavage and makes me feel a hell of a lot better about my gigantic boobs (the bra I wear now is a 44G. G!) Also, can I say, I have a bra that’s a 40DDD and I looked at it today and it looked TINY to me. Tiny! RiDDDiculous.

Motivator: I’m so looking forward to not caring if the wind is blowing AT me, and it pushes my shirts right up against my stomach and exposes its rotund and lumpy outline. I don’t need a six pack but I am looking forward to a flatter stomach terrain. I don’t need the tum tum to have it’s own topography, is what I’m saying.

Oh, I thought of another motivator. Taking that next picture! I took a progress picture when I had lost 22 pounds, so I’ll probably take the next one when I get down to 220ish, or a 40 pound loss. I’m hoping the Challenge will help get me there!

Breakfast:

*gala apple
*1/2 a cup cottage cheese
*half an arnold’s thin with 1 tbsp peanut butter
*cup of milk

Lunch:

*wrap: large whole wheat wrap, handful of baby spinach, shredded carrots, chicken, 2 or 3 tbsp of tzatziki sauce, 5 small bread and butter pickles
*1/2 a cup of cottage cheese (see, I had a full cup prepared at breakfast but I only at half because I was full from everything else, so for lunch I finished it up. Stay tuned for more thrilling tales)

Snack:

*10 strawberries

Dinner:

*crab salad on romaine lettuce: crab salad was a can of lump meat, 2 tbsp mayo, 1 tsp traditional English mustard (whatever that means), shredded carrots, and a sprinkling of Old Bay and pepper. Mixed it with romaine lettuce and ¼ of a cucumber, diced.

NO CANDY! No candy today. I did look at the nutritional value of all the mini and fun-sized bars, but I decided it wasn't really worth it. There were a few times today when, due to various circumstances, I was irritated and frustrated and in those moments I wanted to eat candy. But I didn't.

Sadly the journey starts here - we have SO much leftover and since my parents are retired and I'm jobless, no one can exactly take it to work to get rid of it. And I'm not gonna throw it away since I didn't buy it, I don't think that'd be fair. I guess we'll see what kind of self-discipline I have!

New AttiFood

So I had a phone interview today. For a job that would be pretty cool, and I’ve done the type of work before. I still don’t think the interview went well. I think my answers were okay, maybe even good enough to move me to the next round, but I don’t think I came across well. Phone interviews mess me up – in a normal face-to-face conversation, your fellow conversation partner is quiet while you talk, but you can gauge reactions and get immediate nonverbal feedback whether it’s positive or negative. On the phone, it’s just silence, impossible to interpret – I hate that. And me being me, I assume the silence means “I’m silently judging and you are a horrible candidate” and from there it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I get flustered and while the essence of my answers isn’t affected, the way in which I communicate is. There are more “ums” and babbling and sometimes even backpedaling if I really feel insecure. It’s so unfortunate; I’m my biggest opponent in a phone interview. Being my own biggest opponent seems to be a theme in my life too. Gonna have to work on that!

Anyway, I’m gonna move on and put it behind me. Also next time if it’s a phone interview I’m gonna try looking at myself in a mirror while I talk – at least I’ll have someone to talk to and I’ll give myself positive nonverbal cues. So silly but it’s not like what I’m doing now is working. SIGH. If any of you have any good phone interview (or regular interviews for that matter) tips, send ‘em my way! …unless the tips are “dress nice” and “send a follow-up thank you” and “don’t sweat like you’re the water show at the Bellagio”; because I already know those.

Other than me sounding like an insecure rambling amateur, today was pretty relaxed. I gave the body a break today and didn’t do any exercise. I am definitely still sore from yesterday. My inner thighs and triceps, specifically.

On to the eats!

Breakfast:

*gala apple
*cup of coffee
*3/4 cup egg subst. with 1/3 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend, 1/4 cup salsa

(and then another cup of coffee an hour or so later)

Snack:

*cup of veggie crunchers

Lunch:

*2/3 cup of cottage cheese
*about a cup(ish) of tuna with 2 tbsp light mayo

Dinner:

*big veggie/chicken stir fry (same as the other night except more this time!)

Dessert:

*skinny cow ice cream cone

Start Yer Engines

So I decided to do a challenge.

Kathryn over at Down to 150 is striving to lose 20 pounds in 8 weeks. I have yet to participate in any of these challenges I see on the interwebs. I've been wanting to, and I also want some extra motivation for the holidays/winter months. So I'm doin' it too!

My weigh-in days are Mondays, so I'll say my starting stat is 234.4 - so I'm working towards 214.4 on December 21st! Twenty pounds in eight weeks means losing 2.5 pounds a week, which to me seems like a solid but safe number. And it also seems like one I could easily average too, taking into account good and bad days/weeks, what have you.

So here we go! Anyone else want to sign up for the challenge?

Oh, I've decided to also do my measurements, because I've never done that before. So here they are in inches:

Bust - 50
Waist - 47
Hips - 52
Arms - 13
Thighs - 26.5

EFood in C Minor

I might have to go down to the county courthouse today.

Because I need to change my middle name to Badass.

Not only did I swim today, but I did the 30 Day Shred too. One, I haven’t done either in at least three weeks. Two, I did BOTH on the same day and usually I stick to just one.

I went to the pool and swam for 20 minutes. I would have liked to go for 10 more, but a lady kind of wedged her way into our lane without asking and three people to one lane (when we all had very different paces) is just too many. So I decided to not be selfish with my 20 minutes and hopped on out.

That extra ten minutes was kinda bugging at me so I decided to cowboygirl up and do the DVD too. As I said I haven’t done it in maybe three weeks – so sweat was pouring out of me. I mean that quite literally. I was doing the DVD and I could feel the beads of sweat running down me – and afterwards, too. Never has anything been so disgusting and awful and gratifying all at the same time. I came upstairs panting and my dog was like “What’s your deal?”

My legs are sore already. I secretly love it.

Breakfast:

*cup of milk
*egg scramble: ½ a cup egg subst., a couple handfuls of baby spinach cooked down, diced red peppers, 1 LCL wedge, sprinkling of pepper, ¼ a cup of salsa

Lunch:

*wrap: large whole wheat wrap, tuna, baby spinach, 1 LCL wedge, 1 stringed string cheese and melted/grilled on the ol’ GFG. (George Foreman Grill for the uninitiated)

Dinner:

*diet coke
*two grilled pita wedges dipped in hummus (lightly dipped)
*grilled chicken pesto panini: “Grilled marinated chicken breast, roasted peppers and grilled zucchini with our basil pesto.” Served with:
*baked lavash chips and about 10 grapes

I went out to dinner to meet up with an old high school friend of mine and her husband – we went to this Greek/Mediterranean place and I got the above. I knew the pesto would be the most outrageous part of the meal – it actually seemed kind of greasy in a way. I ate one half of the sandwich, and about half of the second half (1/4, if math has taught me anything) and then picked out the chicken from the remaining ¼ of the sandwich and ate that. I ate about half the “chips” and all of the grapes.

I actually felt kind of guilty about the panini once I saw/tasted how greasy the pesto made it seem. So I’m glad I didn’t eat it all and since the place we went doesn’t give nutritional info, I hope it didn’t wreck all the good work I did earlier. I deliberately kept the rest of the day light so hopefully it wasn’t for nothing.

You know what that means...

I'm bored. And I have too much time between now and when I'm meeting a friend for dinner.

So you get to hear about something that bugs me that no one really cares about HOORAYYYAYAYAYAY....ay. ?

Okay, The Biggest Loser. Great show, but something bugged me about last week's episode and I forgot to mention it until now.

Did you notice when the members of the black team went home for a week, some of them were SUPER judge-y about what their families were eating? It seemed like Dina especially was ragging all over her husband and other people’s food and stuff and I didn’t like it. Shay was a little bit too. And yes, part of me gets it: their families aren't eating healthy and contestants don’t want their family members to go down their same path - but on the other hand, have they forgotten what it felt like when other people said it to them?   Sit down and teach, don’t be mean.

My grandmother used to do that to me a lot and I hated it. And not once did it change what I ate. I would make a sandwich that, in her defense, really did have an astronomical amount of calories, but she'd say: "That's a lot of calories." in this snarky judgemental way. Trust me - I loved her and I miss her but the woman could judge like you wouldn't believe and wasn't afraid to let it out. Now, I can be stubborn and I often cut off my nose to spite my face, and maybe I wasn't ready (more like unwilling) to make that change for myself - but, give me a break here. If you're saying it because you care, then say it in such a manner that actually conveys love and care and support.

I suppose it's a hard balance to strike - tough and unconditional love. About 4 years ago my mom told me she was afraid I wouldn't get a job because of my weight. That was one of the few times she's ever commented on it. I bet it took a lot of courage for her to say that to me. I love her for spreaking up, though I'm not sure I want to be sold on the idea of overweight = no job because then I'm up shit creek without a paddle. But anyway, years later - it still makes me mad how my grandmother would talk to me about food, but I've accepted how my mom dealt with how I looked. Maybe it's me and I just don't respond well to judgement. I know that's true - I do enough of it to myself, I don't need other people jumping on that bandwagon!

Before we get too deep into my family and life issues because WHO WANTS THAT - NOT ME: the Biggest Loser thing - was I the only one that thought that?

All I Meally Want

Breakfast:

*piece of white bread toast, homemade. My mama’s! With I Can’t Believe butter spray. I think it’s the only reason I would eat regular white bread at this point.
*3/4 a cup of cottage cheese, maybe 2/3 a cup, something around there. I didn’t measure today.

Lunch:

*two cups salad with: romaine lettuce, baby cucumbers, shredded zucchini and carrots, 2/3 a cup chicken, 2 tbsp light ranch dressing, maybe 1 or 2 tsp of hot sauce
*10 strawberries

Snack:

*sliced gala apple
*2 tbsp peanut butter (plus I may or may not have taken a little extra with my finger…allegedly.)

Dinner:

*stir fry: about a cup and a half, probably 2 cups of a frozen veggie stir fry mix, about ½ a cup of chunk chicken, 1 tbsp of black bean paste, and a drizzling of olive oil in the skillet to cook it all up into a scrumdiddlyumptious meal.

***

I went outside today! I took my pup and walked/jogged for about an hour. Well, the jogging took place in intervals in the first half, and the second half was all walking. I’m guessing it was about three miles, since it took me an hour. For some reason I always think it’s this big hurdle to exercise outside, because, there are people! Driving by in cars judging me! Granted, I’m the one out there walking and doing something good for my health, but somehow I’m the one that gets ridiculed in my mind? Sometimes I’m even too ridiculous for myself. Anyway, I’m pretty proud of myself that I got out there and did it.

I take it back I take it back I take it back!

I, 100in12, hereby take back everything negative I have ever said about living at home during this time in my life.

I was watching TV tonight and a enormous, terrifyingly ugly stinkbug landed ON MY TV LIKE TWO FEET AWAY FROM ME. Plotting to kill me, no doubt.

I ran downstairs and got my dad to come up and kill it.

I take it all back. Living at home is awesome.

(The tingle in my spine is just now gone. This incident happened two hours ago. I hate bugs.)

We Sing, We Dance, We Meal Things

Breakfast:

*banana
*one large whole wheat wrap, 1 cup egg subst, 1 LCL wedge, sprinkling of garlic salt and ketchup

Snack:

*1 spinach and mozzarella ravioli (sample at Costco)
*bite of an appetizer (rye bread with a cream cheese/ranch dressing spread, and cucumber on top – my mom is making an appetizer for a party tonight and I tried a bite of it)

Lunch:

*wrap: large whole wheat wrap, handful of baby spinach, chicken, 2 tbsp salsa cream cheese dip (same calorie stats as tzatziki sauce!) 5 black olives
*can of V8
*gala apple

Snack:

*one cup of veggie crunchers! I LOVE THESE THINGS. I CAN'T CONTROL THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE

Dinner:

*10 strawberries
*3/4 a cup cottage cheese

***

I kept dinner light 'cause I was too lazy to cook anything. The only other thing I would have had is a piece of my mom's homemade bread, because it's UH. MAY. ZING. but I thought better of it - and I'll have it tomorrow morning as part of my breakfast.

I did not do any sort of exercise today. Totally should have. I feel about 67% guilty about it. ***WARNING: What I'm about to say may totally be a cop-out*** Sometimes I feel like, if I've done at least something good for me and my future in a day, then I would consider it mildly successful, and that's not bad. For example, today I arranged for an interview for myself next week. I also applied to another couple of jobs. I also went to Costco with my dad and scored some baby spinach, apples, and that salsa cream cheese dip to use for veggies and sandwiches. So I got good stuff for the ol' nutrition front, and I also did my best to improve my financial future. Now, I had plllllllllllenty of time today to go to the gym, or do The Shred, or anything else, but I didn’t. I consider two out of three things mildly successful. Hence the only 67% guilt. I guess if my math were correct it would be 66.6666666% repeating. NERD ALERT!

Here’s the other thing I did today. Updated a profile on EHarmony. IIIII….am unsure about this. I haven’t paid for anything yet. I just put my profile on there and posted pictures and set up my matches or whatever. I am tempted to do it, and I’m also tempted to make “Go on a DATE” as a goal of mine. But I’m scared too. I’m scared of rejection.

You know, come to think of it, I think I’m gonna hold off on it. Until January. That’s when my parents go down to Florida for 4 months to be snowbirds and I’ll have the house to myself – it’ll make dating a lot less embarrassing if the ol’ ‘rents aren’t around. I already have enough insecurities feeling like I’m 16 years old, I don’t need to add “picking me up/dropping me off at my parents' house” to it. And hopefully I’ll weigh less too and be a little more confident in myself. Okay, we’re making it a January Goal.

PS: The title of this post is the title of Jason Mraz' most recent album...can I just say, I saw him in concert last year for the first time ever and...um...the man can put on a show. What I'm saying is, I am attracted to him in a very real way and the singing and guitar-playing and general hotness add to it. Gah.

Little Foodbyes

(again, I know "food" doesn't rhyme with "good", but I thoroughly enjoy that SheDaisy song, so, I'm using it! Rules of Rhyme be damned.)

Breakfast:

*one arnold’s sandwich thin with a slice of ham,½ a cup egg subst. and ketchup
*sliced gala apple

Lunch:

*1/2 a cup cottage cheese
*1/2 a cup veggie crunchers
*wrap: large whole wheat wrap, a couple of chopped broccoli florets, tuna, baby cucumber slices, romaine lettuce, 2 tbsp cream cheese

Snack:

*arnold’s thin with: 1 tbsp slivered almonds, ½ a cup raspberries slightly mashed, 1 packet splenda, 2 tbsp cream cheese

Dinner:

*Panera Mediterranean Veggie sandwich
*Claussen pickle spear

Good food day. Good other choices day. Good see old friends day.

Good day.

Good night!

I did two things today that I am proud of.

1: I went to the gym! I only went for 25 minutes on the treadmill, and only 3 of them were jogging, but I went. I got dressed in workout clothes and went. After a week of nothing and a week of only going twice, that is a big deal. It felt good.

2: I have plans to meet up with a friend of mine tonight – we had originally decided on Panera (her suggestion and I just went with it) so I had researched the web site and their nutritional values and picked out a couple of options. I was prepared. Then she texts me today and says “Wanna see our new place and we can get pizza instead?” WELL, CRAP. I do want to see her new place, but the pizza thing…no. I would normally just say yes, to be easy. It’s the easiest route – I come off as low maintenance, I don’t draw attention to my weight loss efforts, basically, there’s no perceived scrutiny towards me.

On the other more reasonable hand, this is my life. So I wrote back: “Is it okay if its not pizza? Trying to avoid that stuff if I can…lame I know…maybe I can just swing by after dinnertime if its easier? I don’t want to make dinner a pain and all difficult :-P”

And yes, I do text with full sentences like that. These “R U”s and “l8r”s and “C U” nonsense…can’t stand it.

Anyway, I was proud of myself for saying no. She hasn't written back yet (pretty sure she's at work right now....like I'd like to be....SAVE THAT FOR ANOTHER WHINY POST) but I'm glad I didn't just say yes even though I didn't want it. And I felt I had to add unnecessary self-deprecation in there, or else I wouldn’t be comfortable with it. I know saying No to pizza isn't really lame, it just feels like one of those things you have to put in there to not put down someone else’s choice. Even though I know it’s not that big of a deal. Or I had to say it first before she thought it, ya know? (Yes, I am completely neurotic.)

[Edit: I got a text back from her, and she said: "omg of course! come on over and then we'll get take out from panera or something, i'm all about their fuji apple salad" So, success! Back to my original - sort of - plan. And also, I don't know where I get this idea that other people will look down on my good eating habits if/when I decline unhealthy foods - maybe it's more of a projection of my own emotional nonsense. Either way, I sure do get worked up over nothing, don't I?]

Losing My Weigh

Monday morning, we meet again. My old frenemy The Scale and I had the following conversation this morning:

Me: Hey, what do I weigh now?

Scale: 234.4

Me: K Thanks, bye!

Scale: ...... (it's a scale, he/she can't talk)


What did you expect, JackSh*t-calibur wit and creativity? Ha! Nope.

But anyway, 234.4! That's good! I'm lucky I kepy my eating under control. But also, I think the .8 loss from last week was probably a little more than that, and it was more evenly distributed from these two weeks. Maybe water weight or a funky scale moment or something.

Regardless, I'm down 3.4 pounds this week! And I'm also gonna go ahead and move on to the next month, because I'm fidgety and I like to move on, plus I can italicize/green-font-ify that next mark, and who doesn't like doing that!? And maybe I'll give myself that extra week for November as the holidays roll around - though, as I read on somebody's blog whom I'm now forgetting - the holidays are ONE DAY. Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas - ONE DAY. They don't demand weeks of eating in preparation. I suppose we all have holiday parties and other similar events, but it all comes down to one day, or what, like 3 days over the holiday season - 2 if we don't count Halloween. Yeesh!

I don't know how I feel about Halloween this year. I've been largely ignoring it thus far, which, may be my answer. During SWL1 I think I cycled through 2 Halloweens. During the first one I was so proud of myself because I didn't. want. candy. I was adamant about it. But Halloween came, and we had a HUGE bag leftover because my parents buy too much which I suspect is done on purpose. That's when it became tough. I can talk a big game and it's all gravy (or butterfingers and milk duds, in this case) until it's sitting right in front of me.

A few days later I remember grabbing a few pieces from the bowl, and my dad came into the kitchen, saw what I had and said "So, you're giving up on the whole thing, then?" and I remember getting so mad. I still don't like the way he phrased it - "giving up" was so harsh. And it doesn't take into account that I can't be perfect all the time. But it DID take into account how I could have only taken one piece, or found another way to feel indulgent.

I can't remember if it was last year or a different Halloween, but one of the years I know my parents hid the candy, and I suspect it was from me. It was before the 31st, and I was looking in all our usual storage places to find the candy, to see if it had been opened yet. My parents usually always open it before the 31st, and a few pieces are taken here and there. If I found the bag already opened, it was OPEN SEASON for me! But if it was still closed, I would wait so that all of the blame could not be put on me.

The fact that they hid it made it that much more desirable and I spent days looking for it. I finally found it - and it wasn't open. I didn't take any, just left it in its hiding spot and walked away. I think at that point it was more about finding it, saying to myself/my parents "See, I found it but I'm not going to dive into it and come up with wrappers in my ears like you thought" and backing off. I don't even remember if I ate any post-Halloween - I just remember, if my parents are HIDING the candy in all likelihood because of my tendencies to eat half the bag, that's on ME, not on them.

So who knows about this year. I haven't been looking for candy, nor have I naturally come across it. And I guess I'd rather not. And I'd also rather not be in the house on Halloween, either. To just not be near the candy, but also because we get fewer trick-or-treaters every year, except the stupid high school/middle school kids who put on an inside-out sweatshirt and temporary hair dye and think it's a costume and come back like 4 times. Not Cool. If you're gonna do it, put some effort into it! I did it in high school, and we went as Alice in Wonderland characters, as a group. It was awesome. Respect the rules of the holiday, is what I'm saying!

Sad Food

Breakfast:

*1/2 a cup egg subst. scrambled with garlic salt and 1 LCL wedge on a medium whole wheat wrap, and a little bit of ketchup
*3/4 a cup of chocolate peanut butter oatmeal

Snack:

*about 2 cups of veggie crunchers

Lunch:

*wrap: 5 oz grilled salmon, 1 tbsp of 1/3 less fat cream cheese, half a LCL wedge (I KNOW this sounds weird…I guess we all have weird food combinations we like, yeah?)
*baby carrots and hummus (sabra individual size)

Dinner:

*wrap: medium whole wheat wrap, tuna, romaine lettuce and sliced baby cucumber, 7 bread and butter pickle slices, 1 tbsp honey mustard

Dessert:

*one skinny cow dessert cone thing

***

Today was not an easy day. I felt hungry all day. I was bored. It was the perfect day to go run/walk on the track, and I didn't. And I was thisclose to breaking down and going to the grocery store to buy junk, or make a big vat of pesto pasta and garlic bread, or make one of the frozen pizzas we have, or easy mac (I never said my culinary palette was sophisticated!), or any other sort of junk you could imagine. I wanted it. And I thought about my weigh in tomorrow. And then I drank a glass of water and ended up making what I ate.

I know the end result is me making a good choice, but I hate that I got so close to making a bad one - and no exercise all week. Of course that may have something to do with my less-than-stellar mood, which then feeds into my not wanting to exercise, and the whole thing feeds on itself and leaves me sitting here sulking and all moody and annoying.

I've been feeling pretty down lately, still no job (it's been almost 11 months now) and no money, and any money I get from temp work goes straight to my parents. And don't get me wrong, I am ecstatic I can pay them back even a little at a time, because they are amazing and their generousity isn't lost on me, but it still leaves me broke and the cycle continues.

I'm 26 living the life of a 17 year old. It's humiliating.