Weigh Day and Eating Out

By Mandy

So today was my day to weigh in. I did good with eating, and went to the gym, so I was feeling really successful.

But man does that tiny plastic square feel intimidating when it's time to face the music.

The tension in the air was palpable. Music from the show down scenes in the old western movies was playing in my ear as I stepped up. I squinted my eyes closed, took a breath, and looked down....

Ladies and gentleman I am -1 pound! Naturally part of you wants to see -5 every time you get on the scale...but considering how bad I was eating before last week I know it'll take a week or two for my body to come down off the suger/carb high and get back into motion. So I will take that negative pound and run with it. Literally.

Besides weighing in, I wanted to tell you guys about Sunday. My mother's birthday was last week, and so Saturday night my aunt called and said she wanted to take us out to dinner Sunday night. My aunt is the kind of person who will not take no for an answer. An hour spent in her company...and I'm usually trying to eat everything in sight. I was not a happy camper.

Eating out is scary when you're on a diet. Number one...it's just a whole lot of temptation that you don't feel strong enough to deal with. Number two...even if you have self control...finding something healthy to it is horrible. We began scouring the menus of nearby restaurants and all of them had a supposedly 'healthy section' Oh this stuff is under 500 calories, oh this stuff is part of the thin and fit menu!!! But I could not find a single meal at any restaurant I looked at...that didn't have an atrocious amount of sodium and carbohydrates in it.

Luckily, my aunt ended up postponing and we got saved from dinner out. But no matter how dedicated to your diet you are...you can't avoid eating out at some point without looking socially awkward. So I have prepared this mental preparation for eating out. If at all possible...find a menu ahead of time. Find the meal choice with the least amount of calories, carbs, and sodium. It may not be the healthiest choice...but if its the best one you can make in that situation...then I think that still counts as being successful. If you know you're going to be eating out...be extra healthy with your meals for the rest of the day. Have a healthy snack before you leave so that your stomach isn't empty and you don't eat everything on your plate. And try to fit exercise into your day before and/or after the meal.

So that's all from me for now. I'm off to make some veggie juice. I'm trying out a carrot/celery/spinach/apple/strawberry concoction. We'll see how that goes.

I don't get it!

By Sandy

Yes today is weigh day and usually I am happy...

I stayed on my program last week really good.  I turned down milkshakes (even though I really wanted them).  I ate lots of fruits and vegetables.  I ate salads.  I walked 5 out of the 7 days last week.  I did everything right.  I JUMPED out of bed this morning and RAN to the scale.  I couldn't WAIT to weigh.

I gained all of it back.  I am the same weight I was 3 weeks ago.  I lost 4 pounds and gained it all back in 3 weeks and last week was my best week to date.  I don't get it.  Normally I do really good on this kind of program.  Normally I can lose weight.  If I exercise I will lose - if I turn down the stuff I really want I will lose.  But this time - nada.  I not only can't add to my weight loss - but I gained it all back.

Now, I considered very hard in the shower this morning, not telling you.  I thought about just forgetting to post.  Or fudging and telling you that I maintained.  But who is that helping?  I know that you have had times like this when you thought you were doing really good and you got on that scale and were disappointed.  Maybe it wasn't exactly like my experience today, but we have all been upset when we stepped on the bathroom scale.  I know that my body is loving the exercise, because my panties fit better.  I know that I am doing good for my body because my girdle doesn't pinch and make me feel like a stuff sausage.  I know that I am making progress because I can actually tolerate my bra until the end of the day.  So I am going to continue to forge ahead with my program.

I am older than most readers.  I am 44.  So I know that the older we are, our bodies change and losing weight isn't as easy as it once was.  And if I didn't have this blog, I would be tempted to go to McDonalds this morning and say "screw it".  But the fact of the matter is, I promised Mandy that I would do this with her.  And I promised all of you.  And that makes me feel obligated to continue - this is a good thing.  Just by following this blog, you are making me stick to my own program.  Just by being there you are helping me.  So, even if I have to post every Monday a gain, or a maintain, I will continue.  I am hoping this is just bloating or water weight and by exercising and continue to stay on my program I will straighten my body back out.  Leave me some love...I need it today!!

Blooming

We all experience some cold and dark moments in our lives. But no period of life, no matter how frosted and empty, lasts forever. Sooner or later the little buds of hope and happiness push through the layers of sorrow and fear, and they bloom.

I feel like I've bloomed over the past two days. Admitting my defeat in the blog, and then having an honest and heartfelt discussion with the amazing woman we all know as Sandy, helped me a lot more than I expected.

Yesterday I went to the gym. That was quite the experience. On the one hand, it was kind of sad. I remembered when I used to walk into that gym and do an hour and a half workout. How I'd go maximum speed on the machines, how that gym felt like my comfort zone. It felt strange and foreign this time around, but I took a deep breath and reintroduced myself as best I could. 30 minutes were spent on the arcsoft machine...which is kind of like an elliptical, but has a smoother motion to it which is good for people like my mom who have bad knees. It's also the machine you burn the most calories on. I burned 385 calories in 30 minutes. After that I worked on my abs, and god did those machines hurt more then I remembered.

I left feeling exhausted...but in control...strong...decisive. It was a good feeling.

Today I dragged my mother to the grocery store and we did a good healthy food trip. I loaded up on v8, carrots and celery, apples, oranges and bananas, my best bread ever (It's called Arnold's Sandwich thins. I started to get sick of nothing but flat wraps...so this gives you the feel of a fluffy sandwich, but the pieces of bread are sliced thinner so that the top and bottom of your sandwich are the equivalent of one piece of normal wheat bread.) I cooked chicken for dinner. I used to hate chicken cause it always came out so dry, but I found that if you put them in the oven in some Italian dressing they come out nice and moist. A little salsa on the side to dip them in, some spinach leaves, carrots, and soy nuts in my salad...and I was set.

It felt so good to eat my dinner and know that I was putting health into my body. It's funny how much your mindset can make a difference. I'm eating better...and even though I know it's only been a few days, I feel thinner. I'm planning on getting on the scale on Tuesday. I'm going to the gym again tomorrow, and then at least one day on the weekend.

I've also decided to implement motivation techniques to help me say no to temptation. Every time I want to spend money on unhealthy junk food, I'll instead put $5 in my savings box for my trip to florida in July.

So there you have it. There's still a little snow on the ground, but I'm determinedly pushing my way through it.

Confessions

Hello dear friends. I didn't realize it had been so long since I last blogged. I suppose it's easy to lose track of the time when you're hiding, which I have been; hiding from you...trying to hide from myself.

When I started this blog I told myself I would share this journey with you. Failure, success, good days and bad. But actually getting up the nerve to share the bad days with you...is harder than I thought. I grew up in a family where we didn't talk about our feelings. There was occasional bragging about successes, but no discussions of problems or failures. You kept your weaknesses and struggles to yourself. The grown ups didn't like for you to be upset. They would send you off with a cookie or a bowl of ice cream to make you feel better.

So this confession is a hard one. It would be easier to go bury myself in a box of pizza or a pint of ice cream. But I've been doing way too much of that. To say that I have not been eating well...would be an understatement. The amount of pizza, ice cream, and other unhealthy junk I've consumed this past week and a half is shameful. And frightening. It is scary to realize that I have consumed an entire pizza in less than 2 hours....and I still want more. See when I crave...I don't just crave food. I crave the experience of eating...of overeating.

I got on the scale this morning and was amazed to see that I'd only gained a pound. Then again I have achieved a sort of balanced ritual. I'll eat good for a day....then most of the next day, and then I'll go overboard. Then I'll cleanse the next day.

Rinse...repeat.

See...trying to form new habits with the person you've been doing all your bad habits with is hard. Especially when that person is your mom. We get stuck in a circle of dysfunction, as I like to call it. One of us will start with a craving...and the other person will be strong...for a while. Just yesterday my mother was going through the newspaper and a coupon for pizza threw her off. For a whole 2 hours I stayed strong and said no. But the kernel of the idea had been placed in my mind and it was starting to grow. By the time my mom was over the craving I was practically rabid with want. The child in me...doesn't like to feel like the only time we ever eat bad is when she says it's okay. It makes me feel out of control....as if I'm ever in control to begin with...but that's the delusion I give myself. So then I end up talking my mom into the craving all over again.

I find that it's easy to cling to the promise of tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll start fresh, tomorrow I'll get my act together. But tonight I'll have my last hurrah. Tomorrow comes and I find myself saying 'you know...for such and such a reason today doesn't feel like a good day to start. Let's try again tomorrow.' Excuses fly to my tongue faster than I can speak them. I really want to go to the gym...but I'm sick....so I should stay home. 3 hours later it's true that I'm sick...but I'm sitting there chowing down on pizza that I can't even taste. Every excuse I can think up becomes a life raft to which I cling. Why do I do this...when I know that my life raft is leading me right over a deadly cliff?

Is it fear? Uncertainty? Does the answer even matter? Would knowing the whys give me any clue as to the hows of stopping myself? I don't know. Right now I'm awash in a sea of frustration, and self pity. I don't know where my willpower went and I don't know how to find it.

Today is my mom's birthday, and neither of us are feeling extremely festive. But it will feel even more pathetic if we don't do anything. She's trying to decide what we're going to do when I get home. We talked yesterday and decided we need to get our heads together...we need to stop making excuses and start acting. But today is her birthday....what is a birthday without cake? So we're attempting to come up with a game plan that will let us celebrate...but within reason.

For now I'm eating a healthy lunch while I stare out the window at the rain. I feel like I'm looking for the starting line in the pitch blackness of night. If I could find the sun, I could see where I'm going, but I don't even know where to begin to look. My goal is to go to the gym tomorrow after school. Even if it's only 20 mins on the treadmill, at least it's a step in the right direction.

But tonight I will celebrate with my mother. Maybe if I can figure out what it is we're celebrating, I can find the willpower to stop waiting for the next tomorrow.

It's Weigh Day **giggle giggle**

By Sandy

I know I know!!  Sandy, Why do you have a delicious looking burger on a weight loss blog?  WELL, I wanted to show you what 4 pounds looks like and this burger weighs 4 pounds!!

That's right Ladies and Gentlemen (yeah right like we would have any dudes following us) I lost 2 more pounds!!  So Yea!!  That gives me a weight loss of 4 pounds. 

I know 4 pounds is not much, but I am going for a healthy rate of weight loss here and that takes TIME.  We won't always have happy weigh days.  I keep telling myself.  But today is a good one.  This past week, I kept up with my water consumption, did really good on the vitamin every day.  I exercised purposly 3 times.  I didn't always get 5 fruits and vegetables that is something I need to work on.  And I didn't write everyting down (again another challenge).  But I was very mindful of what I was putting in my mouth!!

Let me tell you about something good I tried.  Weight Watchers cream cheese is really delicious and it comes in individual serving cups so there is no guessing.  You know if you eat what's in that cup, it's 2 points.  I also found a website I would like to share.  If you are tracking your points here is an online interactive points calculator that is so easy and it has really helped me:  http://www.webmilhouse.com/pointcalc.php
Of course, weight watchers does not recommend using this points calculator because you need to join their program to keep up with things.  But I am trying to do this without their help this time and I am hoping that you guys will be my meeting. 

So all in all a good week for Sandy.  Don't go out and eat a burger just because I showed you one!!  Please leave me some love in the form of a comment!!  Oh - and you guys let Mandy know that she needs to post and let us know how she's doing!!!  Thank you for reading Across the Miles and Pounds!!

Yea! It's Weigh Day!!

By Sandy

Ok - Weigh Day won't always start off with Yea!  But today it does.  Today is my first weigh in on my program.  I WISH I could tell you that I lost 15 pounds, but the truth of the matter is, I lost 2.  That is a healthy weight loss for a week.  Now, some weeks I will lose more and some weeks I will lose less and some weeks I will gain (but I hope not many).  This week I lost 2 pounds.  I guess you are asking me Sandy, why is there a plate of butter in your post today???  Go ahead - Ask Me!! **giggle**

Well - 4 sticks of butter equals 1 pound.  So, I lost 8 sticks of butter.  That doesn't sound like much really, but let me give you another visual.  What if you took those 8 sticks of butter and smeared them all over your body?  Ewwwwwwwwww right?  Yuck!  Well, basically, what I have done is melt 8 sticks of butter off my body.  This particular weight loss didn't really come from any specific area, and you could argue that it was "just water weight" and I could gain it back tomorrow - and you would be right.  In the beginning we DO lose a lot of water.  That is why it is so important to keep up with the 8 glasses of water per day, because you are losing fluid that is heavy and weighed down with poisons and you want to put clean  beautiful clear water back in it's place.  Did you know that your body is made up of 75% water?  That is really a lot huh?  No wonder water is so important.  If you drink 8 glasses of water a day it will increase memory, it will also help your joints feel better, it will also make your hair, skin and nails look better.  Just plain old water.  So try to drink more water today and less soda - or less sugar sweetened drinks.

Did I do perfect on my plan this week?  NO!!  I didn't exercise everyday, I didn't write down in my journal every day, I didn't get 5 fruits and vegetables every day - but the water, that's what I did do.  And I was conscious of what I was putting in my mouth.  I am trying so hard to go slow.  I tend to jump in with both feet and then get burned out too soon.  I cut out soda this week and I exercised twice - and I lost 2 pounds.  So, just think how FANTASTIC I could have done if I had kept to the program!!!  Oh well, maybe next week.  I am not going to beat myself up for it this week, I am too happy to at least be making progress and you know what else I'm happy about?  YOU!!  That's right, you make the biggest difference in my weight loss by encouraging me and when I see a new follower - I get so EXCITED!!  I get to have another new friend.

I hope you are having a Great Day today!!  Leave me some love in the form of a comment.  I am going to try to stay on task a little better this week.  I HOPE that next week I will have another loss.  Thank you for taking the time to read Across the Miles and Pounds!!

Rough Seas

So this week has been a little harder for me than I foresaw. My plan had been to use this week (which is my spring break off from school) to write a ton, and exercise a ton, and really eat well. See...when I'm at school, my food choices are really limited. Everything I take with me has to be able to last for hours in my backpack without refrigeration and without getting smooshed. So I was excited to be able to take this week to cook my meals fresh and really get my good eating habits rolling.

For the most part I've done okay...when I've been home. All of my friends came home for their spring breaks, you see, and they all wanted to go out and hang. I didn't know how long till I could see them again, so I didn't want to say no. Between socializations and running errands with my mother I've been out of the house a lot, and had to make some out of the house eating habits.

Eating out...is fucking confusing, and hard. Full of temptation. To take the steps to walk to the salad place when it's right next to the pizza place, takes a lot of willpower. I did really good when I was with my mother, because we supported each other. Usually I find out where we're going to eat ahead of time, and look up the menus online and find the healthiest thing I can. It helps cut through temptation when you walk into a restaurant with a gameplan. But last night I didn't do so good. Mostly because I was caught by surprise.

A friend of mine won free tickets to see a musician we both liked. She was under the impression that the show started at 7. But upon arriving at the bar we were informed that the doors didn't even open until 8.30. I'd made sure to eat right before I left, thinking I'd be home around 10 and have time for a glass of v8 or a cup of cottage cheese before bed. My friend and I tried not to get any food. But after a half hour it felt awkward sitting at the bar table with only waters, and watching all the people around us eating made us think we were hungry.

I'm not going to lie here. The bar had healthier choices. There were salads and veggie burgers. I had no excuse. But I wasn't thinking about my diet. I was thinking about how I was soaked from the rain, uncomfortable on the crappy barstool, and annoyed about the time mix-up. It was a perfect storm of emotions and I cracked. I ordered a burger with a side of fries. I did at least take the top of the bun off and eat my burger open-faced. And I only ate half the fries. But they sat heavily in my stomach when my conscious caught up with me later.

I feel like I redeemed myself a little today. I babysat three boys all day, watched them eat breaded chicken patties, and tasty cakes and cheese puffs. I did have a moment of weakness, but it could have been worse than it was. The news about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan hit me very hard. One of my best friends is at the Temple University Campus there. I got a hold of him this morning and he was fine, but then throughout the day there was all this additional information coming in that kept making me really nervous. I had a brought a bag of Quaker Rice Cakes with me, they're a really great low-carb snack, and my nerves lead me to eat the whole bag, which had 3 servings in it. But I guess it was better that I nervously ate my low carb food, than nervously nibbled from the tin of cookies and brownies that were on the kitchen table.

So this week was filled with some rough waves that knocked me around a bit. But what I'm proud about is that I didn't go into self-destruct mode the minute I ate something I shouldn't. That's usually what happens. I'm the model of healthy eating for a month...and then I falter...and instead of picking myself up and saying tomorrow is a new day, I throw a pity party and invite ice cream and pizza along. Not this time. I had a couple bad days, but I will move past them. *Nods with enthusiasm as I take I bite of my baked chicken and carrots*