Just make the stairs stop

So, today I went and did the stadium with my parents. I'm fully moved now and hey it was exercise. Basically what I did was climb up and down stairs for an hour. I made it halfway around the stadium. I hated every minute of it which is generally a sign that it is really good exercise. I sweated, I panted, and then I ran around the stadium track twice. I am a sick, sick puppy. In other news, upon meeting me at the airport my mother told me that I looked "terrific". She actually meant it. I haven't heard her say something like that in years so that felt good. Also, some personal family stuff going on that I am not going to talk about here but good vibes are appreciated. I am off to eat my salad for lunch and do laundry but it is actually good to be home.

What I like about exercising

Today was a crappy workout day so I thought I would make a list of what I actually like about working out. 1. The elusive runner high where you feel like you could run forever. 2. The sense that no matter what else goes wrong with the day you have accomplished one thing. 3. Cute workout clothes. 4. Lifting weights makes me feel strong. 5. It gives me time to think and mentally prepare for my day. 6. It relieves stress. 7. I fit into my clothes better when I work out. 8. I sleep better when I work out. 9. It takes away the aches and pains that I sometimes wake up with from having slept wrong. 10. Nothing is better than a hot shower at the end of a hard workout. Okay, I think that is enough reasons. In other news, I shipped all of my boxes this morning and just have a couple of bags left. I did scrape my hand moving boxes but it is better now. I leave town tomorrow for good and I cancelled my gym membership this morning. The nice people at my gym refunded my deposit which was really fabulous and unexpected. I have been looking into yoga clases in my new town and I think I might try that out rather than actually joing a gym there since this probably won't be a permanent housing situation. I do really have to work on my food, it used to be that I ate a lot when I was stressed, now I am eating too little and that is ridiculous. I am going to try and up my calories a bit today now that almost all the really stressful stuff about my move is finished except for the actual traveling. I can't believe I am moving again, if you had told me last Saturday that this Saturday I would be flying home for good I would have laughed at you. Okay, this is a really long entry so I am going to stop now.

Wonderland

So, I am officially out of the 200's and down to between 198 and 199 lbs, it keeps fluctuating. It is really strange to hit this huge milestone in my weight loss journey in the midst of so much upheaval in my life. On saturday I am moving again, and today I am going to goodwill to dump all of my old clothing so I don't have to pack it. I'm also off to UPS for packing supplies for the few boxes that I have left. I haven't eaten horribly since my popcorn incident and yesterday I was able to refuse a ton of fried food even though I really wanted it. I had a good workout at the gym this morning and got out some stress and in two days I will be out of here for good. Frankly the lack of more binge eating is just amazing for me so I am going to take the small victories where I can right at the moment.

Forgive me for I have sinned

So, I was incredibly upset last night and ended up binge eating. Want to know what I ate? Half a bag of lo-cal popcorn. Yep, that was my binge for the day. I realize it doesn't seem like very much especially since I was under calories for the day but it was completely a binge. I wasn't hungry, I had just eaten dinner, and I ate to medicate myself. I know this, because I tried to stop myself from doing it and couldn't actually stop. I realize that 30 calories (which was about the amount I ate) isn't very much in the grand scale of things, but mentally it felt like a huge step back. My life has been incredibly stressful this year with unemployment and constant moving and I hit my highest weight ever. Now, I am at my lowest weight in years after sort of stablizing myself and I just don't want to screw it up. So, when I binge and I can prove it, I want to catch myself and fix it so it doesn't happen again. Anyway, back to work and moving on past the binge.

General life rant

Okay, I know this is a weight loss blog but I feel the need to rant about something else entirely. I have a temporary job, which is not great but pays some of my bills and was supposed to go until the middle of september. I thought that would be enough time to get back on my feet economically and find a permanent job. Today, my boss told me that they want to end this job on the 15th of June because they are running out of things for me to do, which for those of you keeping track is 20 days from now and at minimum 3 months prior to when I thought the job was going to end. I am job hunting but no luck so far. So, it looks like I will be moving for the third time this year and once again be completely unemployed. I am freaking out and upset because I feel blindsided by the ending of this job that I have only had for a month and a half. Anyway, I really want chocolate but I am going to avoid that and try to stay on track today because I don't want to sabotage myself especially when I will have to be out interviewing much sooner than I expected due to the ending of this job. Today I hate my life and now I am going to move on with my day.

The dreaded grocery store

I should go to the grocery store. I'm not going to do it. I'm tired and I would be very tempted to buy a lot of unecessary food products. I have a golden rule when it comes to the grocery store, never go when tired or hungry. It is too tempting to buy things which one doesn't need because the inner fat girl is making her presence felt and destroying any vestige of impulse control. It is not like I am going to starve, I have tons of frozen chicken at home along with apples and lettuce and eggs. More than enough to get me through dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow by which time the inner fat girl will probably be taking a nap after being out in full force today. Somedays it is about picking one's battles and deciding when not to fight them at all. Today I'm not fighting the grocery store battle and I'm okay with that reality.

Shopping Adventures

I went shopping this weekend for the first time in a long time. Now, it is not that I haven't shopped, just that I haven't shopped in stores. At some point I became an internet shopper because you didn't have to look at yourself in dressing room mirrors or try on tons of things that wouldn't fit despite all the nice sales lady's help. Besides, when you can only shop in the three fat girl stores in the mall why bother? So, I didn't for a long time. This weekend I decided I had to go shopping because none of my clothing fit properly anymore. It was a surreal experience, one I can't remember having since I was about 12 years old. I bought clothing in regular stores, and I rejected clothes because I didn't like the shape or cut rather than because they didn't fit on my body. Now, some size 16's are still tight but they will soon fit properly and in the meantime I know what it is like to walk into a regular store and enjoy shopping. I may become addicted to shopping but right now I just feel free for the first time in a long time.

3 journal girl

Possibly, one sign you need a life is when you realize that you are keeping three weight loss journals simultaneously. I have my blog, a journal where I solely chronicle food and exercise choices, and a journal which is supposed to be a general journal buts ends up being about weight loss. I write in all three on a daily basis which is rather frightening. Accountability is a big thing for me right now and so I journal constantly which has led to the three daily journals situation. Maybe I will cut back at some point when I have more of a life but not right now. Maybe I need more of a life, okay I definately need more of a life. I am going to get on that soon, right now I just want to get through the next couple of months and see what ends up happening with my life long term. I should probably go write in one of my other journals now because I am just that sick on some level.

Mmm Caesar Salad

I love caesar salad. I mean what is not to like? There is chicken and cheese and really good salad dressing. I don't eat the croutons that sometimes come with the salad. I especially like it because I am getting some actual solid protein during the day in the form of chicken. I am easily pleased by salads for lunch because it is usually just enough food to tide me over to my afternoon snack and early dinner. I don't eat any food after dinner at about 6 pm. I am being forced to rework my snacks a bit, the one I have been eating in the afternoon just isn't enough food (it is only a 35 cal piece of cheese) and so I am going to move the popcorn I usually have as desert after dinner to earlier in the day. I am always reworking my food so that I don't get bored by it or in the mood to binge which has been one of my real problems in the past. Right now is a prime example because I just ate a huge salad but I am bored and inclined to find something else to eat. I am avoiding that by keeping my hands busy and I know that the urge will pass in a few minutes and I will be totally fine. In the end, it is all about developing good coping strategies for dealing with food cravings.

Ice cream

I've always loved ice cream, the smooth consistency and slight headache from eating it too fast. I was addicted to the taste and the way it made me feel as I attacked a defenseless pint with my trusty spoon bent from too many impacts with frozen ice cream. I especially like ice cream with chocolate chips in it and swirls of caramel or fudge. Here is the thing, I was at the gym this morningn and came to the stunning realization as I was changing to go shower that I cannot remember the last time I had any ice cream. I had sorbet at a party a month ago but I don't think I have eating ice cream since early January or late December. I used to devour pints of ice cream in a single sitting and then hide the empty container from my parents or roommates. I even liked the combination of potato chips and ice cream which is rather strange. Over the last five months I haven't missed it which is stunning especially since ice cream used to be my comfort food of choice. Bad day, have a pint of ice cream, horrible test have some ice cream, bored have some more ice cream and so on and so forth. Now I savor bags of lo-cal popcorn and chocolate light soy milk for desert. Maybe I don't love ice cream the way I thought I did five months ago, maybe I am finally breaking my several decade long addiction to sugar.

Not freaking perfect

So, I worry that I sound fabulously together in this blog. You know, "Hi, I'm Kat and I'm freaking perfect weight loss girl." I'm not, and since I come from good catholic roots I thought some confession would be good for the soul. When I started working out I was on the slimfast plan with my own modification which was avoid breakfast. Also known as a bad, bad idea. I used to get really dizzy when I worked out because I wasn't eating enough and I was always in a bad mood. Awhile back I came to this realization that I need to be on a plan I could live with for the rest of my life and my diet was not it. So, I altered it, began eating a healthy breakfast and lunch and dinner. The weight loss slowed down (obviously) and I was kind of freaked out and depressed. Then I started feeling good for the first time in years and that was when I figured that I could actually really lose the weight permanently. Since then, I have slipped several times and either missed workouts (less common for me) or overeaten (more common). I had one day at a party where I probably ate 3000 calories and at least 1000 calories were from cheese alone. But it was just one day, and the next day I was careful again and back on program. My workouts haven't been as challenging recently as they should be, but I am working on it. My point is that I am human and I mess up, a lot, but what I am trying to learn is how to recover from those mistakes and failures in resolve in a positive way where I don't back slide and end up eating a lot. The days have gotten easier but I still fight between the healthy and thin person who is trying to come out and the fat girl who thinks sitting on the couch and eating candy would be a much easier and more fun activity. For now the healthy girl is winning and really that is all that I can ask for on a daily basis.

My program

It occurs to me that I haven't talked about my workout program. My plan is insane but it works for me. My new theory is that the best exercise and weightloss program is the one that works for you. Novel I know, what can I say I am just putting myself out on a limb today. So, this is what works for me. I workout a minimum of 5 days a week and a maximum of 6 for between an hour and a half to two hours a day. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I do about an hour of cardio plus 30 minutes of free weights and an ab workout. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays when I am organized and not sick I do an hour and 30 minutes of cardio to 2 hours of cardio and core fitness moves. I vary the kinds of cardio I do and try and listen to my body which is usually a pretty good indicator of when I am pushing too hard. All week I try and eat healthy, which means no white sugar, white flour and relatively lo-cal. I try and stick to between 1300 and 1600 calories a day it sort of depends on the day. Basically, as long as what I eat is healthy and I don't snack continuously which is my downfall I don't worry about it. So far, this has worked and I think as long as I work this program I will continue to get healthy.

42 pounds gone

So, after about 5.5 months of working out I have lost 42 pounds according to the gym scale. The gym scale consistently weighs me 2 lbs heavier than my home scale and I think it is generally more accurate. I haven't lost this much weight in years despite numerous attempts. Here is the thing, it is a really slow process overall and takes a lot of time. It is not like I woke up one day, decided to lose weight, and then magically found myself down 42 lbs. I wish, that would be lovely. Rather I woke up, started working out and eating right and slowly the weight began to come off, some weeks nothing came off and some weeks I lost a lot. I have some things in my favor as well, I'm young, I have my own refridgerator, I work alone so I don't have office lunches or meetings with food, or vending machines to contend with, and I have a boss who is okay with the days I get to work at 9 am rather than 8:30 because I spent some extra time at the gym. Most importantly for me, I don't have a damn thing in my place to binge eat on, no sweets, no bread,no soda, and only lo-cal cheese. This would be harder if I lived with more people or cooked for more than just myself. Still, today I am just going to be grateful for the 42 pound lose and my size 16 jeans and look towards the long slow journey ahead.

Dress sizes are weird

So, I was surfing the web just now and I discovered why I don't fit into size 16 clothing from my favorite store. They size it smaller by 2 inches than other major stores. Wow, how annoying is that since it means I won't be buying any clothes from them for awhile. See, I am never buying a size 18 again if I can help it, sort of a mental thing for me. I'm not planning on being a size 18 again so why buy one. Still, I was annoyed because I really wanted to buy this size 16 dress from them. I guess I will just have to wait for another few weeks before the big shopping trip. My wallet will probably be really happy about that actually which is a good thing. Anyway, I am off to do my ab workout and possibly nap because this cold is still killing me and I really want to be mostly healthy by monday when I have to go to work and back to the gym.

Somedays you've just gotta sleep

Like today for example. I still have my cold and so I staggered out of bed at 8 am, had breakfast, took cold medication and went to bed again. The next time I got up it was 4pm. Also, I discovered I had lost weight today because I slept all day and didn't eat lunch. This is not a good weight loss method, but I did eat dinner and now I'm going back to bed so I can finally try and beat this cold for good. My big accomplishment for the day, I washed clothing that is too big for me. Basically I have no clothing right now because everything is either a size 18, 20, or 22 and I am currently a size 16 on the bottom and 12/14 on the top. I am going to give my old clothes away but I thought it would be mean to not wash it first. I do have a couple of things I can wear but everything else is huge. It is clean though, clean is good right? I'm going to buy more clothes soon but right now I am going to sleep because I am just so gosh darn good at it.

Bad days

So, today has been an incredibly bad day at work and I still have a horrible cold. Also I am driving a truck that freaks me out and I am expecting to be heavily rained on during the commute home. Here is the interesting thing though, early on in my weight loss journey I would have reached for food to deal with my issues. Can we all say ice cream and candy together? Not to mention large quanties of soda. Today, I will probably drive 45 minutes home and do an ab and legs workout to make my self feel better. It is like my body is inhabited by some strange healthy alien being. That is not to say that chocolate isn't really tempting right about now, why do you think I'm journaling it helps stop me from eating. However, I have learned how to change my coping mechanisms so I actually workout or do something productive rather than eat. I'm not perfect but I am learning how to live my life without relying on sugar, it is a small step but it is still a step.

The attack of the killer cold

I'm on about my third cold of this year. The type of cold that siddles up on you when you are least expecting it and whomps you over the head making life incredibly unpleasant. Working out is an especially bad idea when you have a cold, that is when you discover that breathing is actually important. I'm a slow learner and this only occurs to me while actually coughing, gasping, and sneezing on the treadmill. However, one thing I have learned over the last 5 months of losing 38 lbs is that I can't miss workouts. No matter how much they suck and I get the sense that dying horribly would be better somedays than this torture, I have to go to the gym. Missing a day for me can be the impetus to miss a lot of days and that would be very bad. So I go, because I'm a freak and in the end it is better this way. So, to anyone I infected at my gym today by sneezing on you, I'm terribly sorry about that but it will probably happen again tomorrow.

Fast food rambling

People have this huge reliance on fast food and I honestly don't think that is what made me fat. No, damn it, I got fat on the good stuff, like really good cheese and french bread and fabulous deserts and stilton fries. Also admitedly, candy and soda which got me through a lot of exams in college and law school. So if I am going down at least it was with good food and good alcohol, none of this fast food crap that most Americans seem to rely upon so heavily. Some how in my brain that makes it better, I am so strange.

The really bad place

Somedays working out just takes the suckage to a whole new level, known as the very bad place. The place where you get multiple cramps in multiple locations. The cramping starts in the leg and then goes away after about 15 minutes, then it migrates to your side which is much more painful and then goes away. Then about an hour into the workout it comes back in the same place on your side and hangs out for awhile. Then that goes away and I just got a little dizzy from the workout, fortunately that went away relatively quickly. All of this meant that by the time I got done with cardio I was literally covered in sweat from head to toe and then because I am insane I went to lift weights. Of course the side effect of being covered in sweat in a room with fans running is that you are then freezing, regardless of what you are doing. Plus lifting weights caused me to sweat on the one part of my shirt with out sweat on it. Interestingly I have discovered something else while doing my laundry which is now required so I can workout tomorrow morning. Clothing with sweat on it just stays wet for a really long time. Multiple days long time. Can we all say ewwh together now, it is just really, really yucky. Also, I am sweating a lot, the kind of sweat where it rolls down your face and little droplets appear on your arms and then invite their cousins to visit for a few hours. Then eventually you stop working out and stagger home and they go away.

My first entry

I thought I would start a diary, rant about my weight loss journey. Maybe to be accountable to myself, possibly because of a hidden masochistic streak or just for the hell of it. A rambling if you will about my life, or lack thereof, my weight, my burning desire for a chocolate bar on a pretty much continuous basis. I would like to say that I will be witty charming and publishable (is that a word? I don't really care but I am just asking) but mostly I just hope to be skinny at the end of this diary. WHAT I FEAR: That I will for lack of a better analogy fall of the weight loss wagon yet again, that I will be here a year latter as the always fat cousin, the girl with fabulous shoes in a shapless potatoe sack at yet another wedding of impossibly thin blond relatives. That I will develop horrible diseases and high blood pressure and an unending craving for cheesecake and ice cream and gorge myself silly. That this will be the year I top the scale at a whole new unthinkable weight. WHAT I CRAVE: Besides the obvious, chocolate and cheese and crusty french bread, maybe a thick chicken-fried steak with a side of potatoes and lots of butter, all in one meal of course. I want to be the thin girl, not the impossibly thin girl mind you, rather the hotty in the tank top and fitted jeans made up with heels and confidence to spare. You know, the one men stop to say hi to and saleswomen siddle up to with rubbed hands to try and sell the store to in one fell swoop. The girl who doesn't try too hard to be the center of attention and sometimes isn't but maybe just occasionally is right there in the action. I want to dream big and be thin to be comfortable in my skin for the first time in years. I want less than the american dream and more than I already have at this moment in time. I want my cat to be the only big butted mammal in the apartment. That's what I want, this is where I am, overweight and underpaid, literally. Every day at the gym killing myself on the machines, lifting the weights and getting the look about what the crazy fat chick is doing. I am becoming obsessive about working out, which I suppose is better than being obsessive about chocolate. It still feels like a level of hell though, not Dante's ninth level mind you, just a level somewhere in the middle. The really boring painful level, where it is never ending and you can only stare out the window and watch cars break traffic laws for so long. Where two hours of cardio is forever and then in an especially evil move the rest of the day goes ridiculously fast and suddenly you are back at 8:30 am on the eliptical machine with two hours to go and bad country music on your headset radio because it is the only thing that comes in without static and you will slit your wrists before being forced to listen to the perenially perky and skinny Katie Couric on TV. Of course, you have been forced to watch her because you are only five foot two and reaching the tv to turning it off is a privilege reserved for tall people not midgets like you. Every day is like this except for the weekend where you have a whole day off to relax and sleep in, except you can't because your body is now trained to wake up at 8 am and the sunlight streams in no matter what you do to prevent it. No matter it is a whole day off since Sunday doesn't count because on Sunday you will be back at the gym lifting weights which sucks almost as much. Mostly because I lose count somewhere in the middle of any given set and then end up doing either more or less weights than I should be doing. Then I have lifter's guilt, you know, I worry I'm lifting too much weight or too little, am I doing this move right, should I be doing the reps slower, are other people watching me. Then after half an hour to an hour of that lovely mind trip, I go home and shower. Somedays I have so much guilt that I think my catholic roots are showing next thing you know I will be wondering if I should go to Mass even though no one in my family in the past two generations has done that or even believed in the teachings of the catholic church. So then I am home, and there is food to be eaten. Well, if you call the processed goodness of slimfast, which I don't, not really. Fortunately, my body considers it to be chocolate, I am so evil for tricking myself like this, I should really hate me. Really I should, I'm just a bad, bad person, I am ashamed of me. But I digress, so there is slimfast and then later there is fruit, or popcorn. Then distraction, dinner and bed and the whole thing starts over again. I am telling you, this whole weight loss thing is evil, but has to be done. I know that, doesn't make it not evil and boring. See, the way I figure it, weight loss is kind of like good shoes. At least for me. I need good shoes, I crave good shoes, just the way I want to lose weight. So, I remind myself, how much healthier would it be to own lots of shoes and be skinny, rather than to be fat with good shoes. Because, lets be honest here, who notices a fat girl's shoes, you notice that she is fat. But a thin girl, well you might just notice her shoes because you are not distracted by the weight. Okay, maybe that is just me. I am obsessed with shoes after all. I have mentioned that this is all about me right. So had lupper (for the unintiated that would be lunch and supper combined into one meal) quite nummy and well within diet guidelines but did have to watch the roommates eat saurkraut. Now I must admit, I don't get saurkraut, not in any way, why was this crap invented. It tastes nasty and involves cabbage which I actively dislike on general principles as being not nearly as good as lettuce or spinach or any one of a number of similar vegetables. But I am guessing that you are confused right about now, given my size it would seem that I loved every food in existence, frequently and in large quantities, however you would be wrong about that idea. FOODS I HATE: The aformentioned saurkraut, eggplant, these dried seed things you get in Hawaii, martinis (although I like chocolate martinis) and I am not huge on really spicy things or pickled ginger. However, obviously this is a short list and the list of food that I love is simply enormous and never ending. If I only hated more food, losing weight would be so much easier and less annoying. It is annoying, if not downright painful to give up margaritas and wine because of the calories, and to skimp on cheese and eliminate deserts to help slim one's middle. Some people never experience this pain, which I think is a clear sign that if the creator exists she has a messed up sense of humor. Plus, some people just don't like food which is wrong in my humble opinion, food should be enjoyed and savored and licked off the plate if you are alone in your room. I mean people starve to death every day in the world so shouldn't we at least enjoy the experience while we can and be thankful for it. Okay, rant officially over. On a side note, I was told once by a doctor that given the death grip with which my body holds on to food I would probably easily survive something like a famine and all the skinny people would die. I take a certain satisfaction from that thought.