October 11, 2009 - Day 2 on my own

Day 2 on my own didn't go too well, either, as it happened. Circumstances seemed outside of my control. I guess I could have taken control of them, but in a social situation I didn't feel like it. Somehow celebrating my Dad's birthday wound up taking a lot of time out of my week (going over Friday night on his birthday, then dinner with him Saturday night, then hiking with him today and dinner afterward) and I don't mind griping here that I am pretty annoyed that that happened!! Hiking was my idea for what we'd do, then Mom said to come over Saturday night for dinner and I did.

Well, today, I again was good at breakfast time and had a good, well-balanced, 419-calorie breakfast. Then we went on a hike - relatively leisurely, actually, a few hills, but moderate and stopping every several yards to read a placard. Then I suggested we go to lunch, but since he was on his old stompin grounds, he decided to take the next 2 hours reliving his past and driving through all the old neighborhoods recognizing the houses and who used to live there. It was pleasing to me, it was neat, and it was obviously something he was really enjoying, and it took a couple of hours! Then we started looking around for a place to eat. He suggested this old BBQ place he used to go to, but it wasn't there. The next cafeteria we tried was closed. He suggested this Mexican restaurant, and at that point I vocalized that I'd like to go some place where I had half a chance of finding something on the menu not loaded down with fat. So we tried a couple more places which were either closed or weren't there anymore. Where we wound up was this "World's Best" fish camp which my memory told me was good and my common sense figured they'd at least have broiled fish on. No - they didn't. It was a buffet of fried seafood - the only vegetables were cole slaw, fries, baked potato, and mac&cheese. Oh, and this wimpy watery rice. The food wasn't even good. I'm not sure how to count it as calories because I didn't eat everything on my plate, to say the least. We were very disappointed, stuffed with bad food, and feeling a little gross and greasy. Did we ever think this place was good, or had they just gotten worse?

Well, I wasn't sure how to count it, so I just typed it in as the equivalent of a Red Lobster's fried seafood captain's platter (judging by the picture) even though I ate probably less than half of what I piled on my plate, for all I know it might have been comparative. Plus, I had an extra serving of mac & cheese (which I did find palatable) and some "cherry cobbler" to cleanse the greasy palate with something tart, picking the real cherries out from the mounds of cherry-flavored gelatinous stuff with cakey "cobbler". :-P

After all that, we got home and found out Mom had made chicken soup, which would have been so much better.

So apparently, if my guesses are remotely close to correct, I had 2572 calories today, about 1000 more than I wanted (including 378 calories of Whoppers and another slice of chocolate cake which I honestly took about 40% because I wanted a piece of chocolate cake and about 60% to help them to get rid of all that cake). 330 grams of carbs (about 80 grams too many), 105 grams of fat (about 40 grams too many) and 87 grams of protein (within sparkpeople's suggested range.)

Guess what. I am still obliged to take in one more restaurant meal, with a friend, tomorrow - and it's Indian food, and I love Indian food but I don't think the good stuff is particularly low-cal.

After tomorrow though, that's it. My social obligations/pressures to pig out will be over. I will be glad, this is a bit frustrating.

Also - we shall see - maybe I can actually go to the Indian restaurant and get a small serving of one favorite meal over some basmati rice. I already know it's a vegetarian place so I don't guess I'll be getting a sufficient ratio of protein there in all likelihood.

October 10 - going without a plan - birthday dinner celebration

I've decided, for the time being, to try going without ediets. I am dropping the weight of managing ediets and replacing it with the challenge of monitoring myself. My goal is to gain fewer than 5 pounds by the end of the month, and if in the meantime I actually find some new answers within myself about how to maintain or lose weight, that'll be a big bonus. So I need to stay in the 220s or below. I have been looking at Sparkpeople all day, tracking all my food there, and thinking about

Today I went a little over. Things started off pretty well. I didn't get out of bed for a few hours, and so breakfast was late, and breakfast wasn't really a problem. I had: an omelette of 1 egg, 1 egg white, 1 sliced mushroom, and 1 ounce of reduced fat cheddar cheese; 1 piece of whole wheat toast with a scarping of butter and a tablespoon of cherry jam; 6-8 oz of nonfat milk. I cooked the omelet over a scraping of butter instead of Pam or olive oil, too. I had missed butter, and I found just a little bit was enough to give me the flavor I wanted. I had also not had jam on my toast in so long. Honestly, it's not like I've had a bunch of toast and jam over the past 10 years - but ever since I've been on this meal plan and making my own breakfasts, I haven't had jelly and it seemed a shame. I was paying intense attention to my serving sizes and my food choices and I wasn't losing control.

According to sparkpeople, breakfast was 467 calories.

Then dinner - birthday dinner with Dad, and this time I joined in. We went to the Outback - relatively clean and healthy food. I ordered a 6-oz steak with their garlic mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables, and a Mai Tai, and also had a couple pieces of their bread with whipped butter. On top of that, I had given Dad some Whoppers candy as a bday present, so I wound up tasting about 9 of those over the course of the evening. And also we went home and had a very rich piece of chocolate birthday cake that even I wasn't able to finish.

Dinner was a little harder to quantify, but when I finished entering my foods in at sparkpeople, they figured my dinner was 1,928 calories, bringing my total for the day to 2,396. They reckoned I'd met my goals for carbohydrates and protein, but I'd had 90 grams of fat instead of the recommended 27-60 grams.

Now, I wasn't entirely "out of control" at dinner either, but I did splurge in celebratory fashion. The Mai Tai was 25% of my calories today, and there was 25 grams of fat in the garlic mashed potatoes alone. The chocolate cake alone reports itself as only 235 calories, and I have no way of knowing really how close that is. I had also got the lobster-and-mushroom topping to go with the steak, and even though I only ate about half of the buttery/salty stuff, it was still a major calorie addition - 196 calories, if that is to be believed (frankly I can't believe that the minute amount of lobster, mushroom, and butter I had could add up to quite that much.) Also a lot of sodium was ingested in that meal, which may not cause me to gain fat but it will show up on the scale.

So... tomorrow is supposed to be a day of hiking with Dad, but food is not important to the plan and if food is eaten, I'm sure I can manage to keep it to 1650 or less. Well, I'll do better than today, anyway. Have to stay below 230.

October 10, mmmmph 225.5? I want a recount!

I just got up and stood on the scale, a little excited for what I'd see on weigh-in day. But the result was not actually an emotional boost. Having weighed in at 225 earlier this week, and having only eaten 3 of yesterday's 5 scheduled meals, I was kind of prepared to weigh less than 225 today, but instead I'm a little over. Granted it's still more than a 2-pound loss for the week. Still, I feel like waiting around a while and seeing if the scale gives a lower reading within the next hour... Petty much? Hey, it's weigh-in day. My tickers already show a reading of 225, a reduction of 60 pounds. How depressing to bring them back up.

I adhered to the meal plan this week, except a couple skipped meals. Now I don't know what to do. In the coming days, I'm scheduled for a restaurant dinner tonight with my parents, and birthday cake, Indian food with my friend on Monday, and on Wednesday I head to Asheville. I feel a bit overwhelmed with everything I have to get done before that day, and then once in Asheville I have begun to feel excessive anxiety again over the work I have to do there. I really hope to make my time in Asheville a good time during which I can soak up the atmosphere and fine weather and be relaxed and happy, but in all likelihood I think I will be anxious and grumpy about my lighting design, making it suit my standards and possibly (knowing me) feeling grossly affected by my exaggerated detections of disapproval from my colleagues there. I wanted to take this opportunity in Asheville because I recognized a stagnation in my life and a need to take on new challenges, and also possibly meet new people and have new experiences and find new open doors. But lighting design - especially drafting a plot - fills me with such dread and anxiety and it took me all week to do it and I didn't get any sleep the night before my deadline... and this is all par for the course for me. I'm actually doing a little better about relaxing about it this time, having confidence in my abilities to carry me through it, and not letting it have so much importance that it drags me into the dregs, but it is still a battle. This feeling of being "challenged" is novel but the anxiety it stirs up is a really horrible feeling and makes me just want to settle in to a comfortable job with a comfortable group of people where we already accept each other because we've been together for years. I always describe myself as being a low-key person, but maybe the truth is that that's because I avoid anxiety as much as possible - because the slightest thing like meeting someone new or doing this job can cause me anxiety that feels like my soul is being pummeled inside my skin. It is not invigorating. And maybe it is mostly fear of disapproval from others. Hm.

Well, that was a rant. I'm sorry I didn't reach my goal before going to Asheville, I guess. I feel confused and sort of like I should go off the ediets meal plan now and just try to "behave" on my own until I get back from Asheville.

excess skin

Yay! 225! Hurrah for skipping dinner, haha. I'm just 5 pounds away from that goal!

After watching that vlogger last night, I'm thinking about excess skin.

Let me first mention that I was pleased to notice that this particular vlogger remained quite buxom after her weight-loss surgery. Still, she didn't come out with a particularly feminine shape. Something about her back and her hip-waist ratio. She did have a long torso, though. My torso is a little more in proportion to my height. Still, I wondered if her eventual outcome had much to do with the rapidity of her weight loss, and the artificiality of the tummy tuck.

From http://weightloss.about.com/od/obesityhealth/a/blexcessskin.htm

Factors having to do with skin elasticity rebounding from weight loss:

-do you have 100 pounds of weight to lose?

Well, yes. Since I started at 285, I can definitely see myself getting down to 185 or even a little less in the quest for a waist.

-rapidity of weight loss

While I lost weight a bit faster in the beginning of the process, it has slowed and I have to say I'm pleased about the little bounces and humps on my weight loss graph, I intuit that these humps and plateaus give my skin a chance to catch up to my weight loss. (On the other hand, maybe they keep my skin from reducing as effectively.) I'm pretty much down to the 1-2 pounds a week thing now.

-how long have you been overweight

Oo, bad news for me. I have had this bulging belly my entire adult life. My adult body, if it has any sense of these things, is quite accustomed to having all that extra skin out there.

-age of dieter

Hm - At 36, I'm not exactly young, but I'm not quite "middle-aged" so I think my skin still has some elasticity to it.

-

I've decided I want to try to avoid the excess skin. So - http://searchwarp.com/swa25902.htm

- lose weight slowly - check. In fact, I'm thinking way more seriously about taking some time off once I hit 220 to give my body a chance to catch up to the weight loss and to focus more on my muscle tissue.

- eat nutrient rich foods - check. Also this guideline includes commentary on eating avocados, olives, nuts, and fish, all of which have been prevalent in my ediets meal plan! Unanticipated bonus!

- preserve muscle tone - yeah, I'm not sure how much my muscle tone is preserved. I will have to use my time at 220 to work out.

- keep skin hydrated (particularly with water and not so much the fizzy drinks.) Ok, drink diet soda predominantly. Other than that, maybe herbal or Crystal light tea. Milk and soy milk when the meal plan calls for it. Sometimes coffee or black tea. Rarely straight up water. This guideline recommends 2 liters per day. I do like my fizzy drinks and coffee, but I also want my skin to tighten up, so I will have to focus more on this.

- lose weight sooner rather than later Well, it is what it is. As I said, I'm still pre-40, so I may still be okay on this front.

I feel a little better after typing this. I was feeling sort of full of dread, and feeling like it was hopeless to go through all this weight loss stuff, that I'd only end up worse off at 175 as I was at 250, and that I wouldn't like being slender after all, and not just because of the potential for the body to get slender in unattractive ways, but also because I wouldn't like being a slender person. Differences in male attention, or no longer being able to use "fat" as an excuse or as a way to be different or who I am, or just having it all over... not sure exactly but there was a feeling of dread and it could be totally related to job stress and how much sleep I'm getting, and less about the weight loss really.

Anyway, back to work!

youtube vlogger

I have stayed up all night watching a youtube vlogger. She had gastric bypass and you can watch through the videos as she reduces from 300 pounds to 170. Her name is massagegoddess, if you want to look her up. I was very glad she decided to show her excess skin, and I was able to notice that - in her case - even after the weight loss and eventual tummy tuck, her back was very broad and her hips very small. It made me wonder if that's how she'd naturally look if she had always been normal weight, or if some people who are apples are naturally 'meant' to put on the extra fat. It was very exciting to watch her get so small, and I was determined to stay through to find out what happened to her as she hit normal weight. Apart from nearly dying from a hernia, she seems to be adapting relatively well. Gastric still scares me, though. Wouldn't want to do it! But I was glad she showed the excess skin so honestly. Naturally I'm thinking about my own case - will I have the same issues with excess skin. As things stand now I squeeze myself and watch how my skin wrinkles. I've always had stretch marks but they've never been a problem for me before, you could hardly see them - now though, they form more noticeable indentations in the belly, and they become real creases when I squeeze at them.

It was also fun to watch her vanity change. As she started losing a lot of weight in the first weeks, she began wearing lots of makeup, primping, becoming extra cute, monitoring her camera angle, you could see her checking herself out in the monitor constantly. She was obviously excited about the changes happening to her. I could totally relate - I went through that a time or two in my life also. You just begin to revel in the newfound cuteness and femininity that arises, which is really based more on what's to come than on what's already there. You know how sometimes you feel great about yourself physically, so you feel fun and put on something to match how you feel and how you think you should look, and then you catch yourself in an unposed angle and realize your dress is totally inappropriate for how you actually look now.

Well, I totally sinned. I really need to be working on my light plot and it's almost 8a.m. now, I spent like 5-7 hours watching her youtube videos. I never even made dinner, and now it's just too late. I need to sleep, so I can wake up soon and get back to work!

October 5, 226.2

After 2 days of rededicating myself to 100% adherence to the meal plan (ok, with a few variations, like substituting one fruit for another, overestimating portion sizes (there's no food scale at Harris Teeter) and skipping last night's serving of brown rice) - I am already dangerously close to 225! There was a definitive difference in the scale's stopping range this morning.

Come to think of it, there was a lot of peeing yesterday. I couldn't even make it through the movie without getting up to pee - this is very unusual for me.

My rededication has looks like this: When I go into a convenience store to get a drink or gasoline, I want to buy candy or snacks, but I do not. Not even the 10-cent little mini peanut butter cups at the register. I went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with my family, and while they chowed down on cheesy delicious Mexican food, I sipped Diet Coke and noshed on cottage cheese with canteloupe and sliced almonds. No donuts, no beer, just every few hours another meal from the meal plan.

This week I'm spending more time working at home, so food preparation and packing shouldn't be an ordeal.

I hope to see 225 by the end of this week! In the mirror I can see that my upper belly is sloping in, rather than bulging out, even though the ultimate ridge over the belly button remains too much, I think it's a sign that I'm finally starting to lose fat from the front of my belly, the one place it matters most! Knock on wood.

The rest of this month I will be working in Asheville and then probably a trip to NYC. These might just be major hindrances to future progress, and I won't even be surprised if there is backsliding. After that, though, I will have to pull in and become a serious working girl and earn some money for a while, so hopefully, even through the holiday season, I'll be able to continue to lose weight.

Also during this week, I should add 10 more meals to the meal book, and 2 of them should be fast food meals. Due Saturday.

October 3, 228

228 is .5 pounds loss from last week. I may have cheated on the number a little bit. In truth I didn't have a stellar week when it comes to sticking to the plan. Yesterday at work lunch was catered - I had the fried chicken patty without the bun, some cukes and grape tomatoes, and a slice of chocolate cake with rich delicious frosting. Last night I worked hard to talk myself into binging on something, anything, even though I wasn't really in the mood. It wasn't a terrible binge, but it wasn't in the diet plan. I even thought to myself, "Why am I doing this the night before my weekly weigh-in?" but I seemed to enjoy it.

Anyway, I went grocery shopping last night and have the groceries for the coming week, and I intend to do what it takes to stick to the meal plan this week so I can see a real loss next week! I feel a little impatient to reach 220, even though I know it may not happen for a while, now, with my working in Asheville next week and stuff.

I've been slacking off and losing steam, but this week I'm sticking to it. I'm kind of excited about it again!

My body craves yoga now so I must get up and at it.