Fail

I succumbed.

Someone left half a bag of freaking candy corn in the kitchen, and I fell prey to its siren song.

I was poised to deal with doughnuts, with candy canes, with sugar cookies, even with those peanut butter cookies topped with a Hershey's kiss.

But how was I supposed to resist candy corn? That's Hallowe'en candy! I'd dropped those defenses for the year! And not just a handful, either. I snarfed so many of those little puppies that I actually feel faintly nauseous, now.

I'd track the points and chalk it up to a learning experience, except that I have no way to know how many servings I ate. Three? Four?

And tomorrow we're having our belated family Christmas dinner, and we're having both pecan pie and coconut custard pie for dessert. Coconut custard!

I'm doomed.

*deep breath*

One failure -- or two, or three, or even a dozen -- does not mean the diet is doomed. Deprivation is not the answer, and neither is defeatism. I had some of my best weight loss ever in weeks where I was indulging a little almost every day. This is not the end of the world, right?

Right. It probably isn't even as bad as the pizza and carrot cake and ice cream that I had at Gran'ma's house last week. I just can't let it become a pattern. I'll eat a healthy breakfast and lunch tomorrow before the dinner, and only the one piece of pie (not one of each!) and then on Friday I'll get my ass back on that wagon. I'll find healthier outlets for whatever stress is driving me to eat past the point of nausea. I'll go to the gym and work it off -- the stress, and the extra calories.

I am not going to be defeated by candy. I am certainly not going to be defeated by stale candy. Right?

I What?

I missed last week's weigh-in, because I was at my mother-in-law's house and didn't want to deal with a different scale.

I spent the week trying very hard not to eat out of boredom. Or stress. Or both. The closer we got to the end of the week, the more that resolve weakened; I wasn't very restrained at all for our last couple of days. I ate desserts and ice cream and cookies and... Bleh. And I stopped journalling altogether about halfway through the trip; my 'net connection via my phone was so slow it was maddening, and I forgot to take along a paper journal.

(I did, at least, confine myself to no more than a half a bagel for breakfast, and a reasonable lunch of leftovers or a sandwich and some fruit. Even on the days I wasn't journalling)

I was expecting to gain weight. I was hoping it wouldn't be more than a pound or two.

I wasn't expecting a loss.

But that's what I got, anyway. The scale said 246.2 this morning, for a loss of 2.4 pounds over the last two weeks, dropping me below the 25-pound mark. Not bad, considering how little exercise I got (airport navigation notwithstanding) and how badly I ate!

One more big family meal to withstand, tomorrow, and then we'll be off and running for the new year!

'Tis the Season

Last night, we exchanged gifts with our next-door neighbors, since they're leaving today for two weeks. They gave us a cute snowman decoration, and a tin of homemade cookies. (2 points each? Ish?)

There are two boxes of my favorite doughnuts in the kitchen. (6 points each) And a tin of sugar-glazed pecans. (4 points for 1/4c)

In my office is a gift ornament containing eight Ghiradelli chocolate squares. (3 points for 2 squares.) Also, six candy canes. (1 point each)

The doughnuts are the hardest to deal with, and the most dangerous -- I'm constitutionally incapable of only eating one, so I really don't dare indulge. The candy canes are the easiest -- even if I eat all six, it's not completely disastrous. (Which, perversely, makes it easier for me to eat fewer of them.)

Next week, we're going to be out of town, visiting family and (hopefully) friends. Which means I'll spend a lot of time both bored and surrounded by food. We'll eat out a lot. Various relatives will pull out all the stops and have fabulous meals. And then we'll come back and have a big Christmas dinner with my family.

The goal. If I say I'm going to keep losing through all that, then I'm just setting myself up for failure. So the goal is not to stick religiously to the plan, but to try to be a little sensible. The goal is to journal everything, even if it means having to record that I went way overboard on multiple occasions. The goal is to gain no more than 5 pounds over the next two weeks. If, on January 2, I step on the scale and it says 253, then I will have succeeded. And then I will get back on the wagon and lose those pounds before they have a chance to unpack and make friends.

Here's hoping.

Pants

I bought new pants yesterday. The idea of going to visit my in-laws with a pair of pants that was three sizes too big was just frustrating the hell out of me. (Seriously. They were a little loose on me twenty pounds ago -- now, I can pull them off without unzipping them!)

I mean, I can't wear my jeans the whole week -- if nothing else, I need something to wear on the day we'll do laundry. And my brown pants fit fine, but they're brown, which is not really a good color for Christmas. I needed some black pants. That fit. I have an older pair of stretch polyester pants that could work, but as I discovered last year -- they do nothing to stop the cold. Plus, they're starting to look a bit tatty. So. New pants.

So when I was at Target yesterday to get some cold medicine, I bought some pants. They're meant to be sweat pants, I think, but I don't think anyone is going to notice, since they're relatively tight-fitting, and I wear long shirts that will hide the drawstring. I got a pair of black and a pair that's grey. Not sweatpants-grey, but dark grey, like good wool.

They're size 20/22, for whatever that's worth.

I changed into them as soon as I got home, and it felt so much better.

On Approach

This morning I weighed 248.6 -- below 250 for the first time in a while, and less than five pounds from my first big goal.

So I guess I'm surviving the holidays okay, so far -- the extra candy in the house, the cookie party we had last weekend, the tray of treats in the office kitchen. I'm not abstaining, because that would just make me feel martyred and grouchy. I actually dipped into my flex points this week for my office's holiday luncheon. I piled my plate high -- but I tried to be sensible. I took a big scoop of baked ziti, and an equally big scoop of salad. I had a slice of salami off the antipasta platter, and a tomato covered with fresh mozzarella, and a couple of olives bigger than my thumb. And I damned well had a slice of the German chocolate cake for dessert.

But I didn't go back for seconds (though the gods know I wanted to) and I logged it all and I accepted the flex points that it burned. I ate dinner and didn't starve myself that evening in some kind of twisted compensation.

It's worth noting that my best losses have been in weeks when I've been having small indulgences on a regular basis. The week of my birthday, when I was having coconut cake every day. This week, with the party and the cookies and candy in the house. The key, I think, is small. I'm not eating a quarter of a cake. I'm eating a slice. Half a slice. Three or four pieces of chocolate. Two or three small cookies (or one big one). Normal-people amounts.

These amounts do not satisfy. I don't care what anyone else says. They just don't. They make me want more, and more, and more. But I'm drawing the line. I'm eating normal-people amounts of sweets and junk food, and I'm logging it, and I'm counting the points.

And I'm losing weight.

Breakfast

Trying something different for breakfast. I've already switched out my coffee for hot tea, though that's a winter thing, and I'll almost certainly go back to coffee in the spring.

But now I've swapped out one of my two packets of instant grits for a little cup of Fiber One yogurt. It's a one-point reduction, and gives my system a couple of different kinds of food to process, so it seems to last a bit longer.

And since the yogurt takes up some milk/calcium slack, I replaced the half-cup of milk I was drinking with my pills and vitamins with a few swallows of Crystal Light. Which saves me another point.

It's goofy that I'm working on ways to save points right now, because I'm still ending each day with a handful of points to spare. (I'll almost be grateful when I drop to the next category down.) Still, it's good practice for the future. And certainly helpful on days like today, when I've got a pasta, butter, and dessert-laden holiday lunch looming over me.

Baggy

The WW website is still fussing at me for losing weight too quickly, even though I only lost 1.4 pounds this week.

I've got exactly 6 pounds to go before I hit my first 10% goal, so I don't think I'm going to manage it by the end of the year, not with only 3 weigh-ins left and Christmas smack in the middle of it all.

Still, I'm getting pretty close, and that's something to be proud of, right? I need to think of a good reward for myself.

When I was at the gym Monday, my usual stationary bikes were in use, so I spent an entire thirty minutes on one of the elliptical machines. It probably wasn't all that good for my knee, but otherwise it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm thinking of making it a regular part of the rotation -- once a week or so, perhaps.

Or maybe, now that 30 minutes isn't kicking me in the head as hard as it was, I can tack on an extra 5-10 minutes. 20 minutes bike, 15 minutes elliptical? Something like that. I'll try a few different things and see what works for me.

Smaller

Went to fasten my bra this morning and was surprised to discover that it was more comfortable on the second set of hooks.

I bought this bra just as I was starting WW, and I'd noticed that it's gotten a little less snug over the weeks, but this is the first concrete, measurable shrinkage.

(Still amply filling the DDD cups, though. Expect that'll take a bit longer.)

Downs and Ups

I'm up 2.2 pounds this week, but since I was down an unnatural 6.6 last week, I'm not stressing over it -- that's still an average of 2 pounds lost each of the last two weeks, and it means I successfully navigated Thanksgiving. (I think. It's hard to tell, what with the whole "regaining fluid weight" thing after being sick.)

And now begins the hell that is the holiday season on a diet.

The regular full-sized candy canes I bought for my advent calendar at work are 1 point each. The Mint Truffle Hershey's Kisses I bought to put in the advent calendar at home are half a point each. So that's an extra 1.5 points per day for me. Not too hard to carve out of my daily allowance, really -- I could just cut back on the milk I have with dinner, or skip dessert. But that's just the beginning.

Wish me luck.

Seasonal

Doughnuts in the kitchen this morning.

At least they're Dunkin' Donuts and not Krispy Kreme, but still... temptation.

Let the Season Of Foodage begin. Can I get through the next five weeks without going back over 255? We shall see!