Forward Ho

Down 1.2 this week to 158.4, so I'm pretty much back to where I was before I had that one weird huge drop a few weeks back and then screwed it up by gaining a lot for two weeks in a row. Heh.

I'm thinking about dropping my Weight Watchers subscription. I can count on one hand the number of times I've logged in over the last three weeks, and at least half of those have been simply to log my weight.

I don't go to meetings and my support group is my friends and family, so there's nothing to lose there. And the website simply isn't giving me much that I can use. I've been double-tracking my weekly weigh-ins on a spreadsheet anyway, and a spreadsheet I own myself can give me much more customized (and therefore useful) graphs and calculations. I occasionally hit the website for recipes -- but since I almost always rebuild the recipes a bit (to replace items we don't eat, or adjust serving sizes, or reduce carbs for Penny's sake) I usually have to recalculate the points anyway, so I can just switch to using the other gajillion-and-one diet recipe sites out there. I've hit all the big milestones I'm going to hit, so I'm not looking forward to the validation of little star icons. I'm not a forums person, I don't use their coupons to buy their food, and it's been ages since I've seen anything new or helpful in the advice columns.

I've been more or less maintaining my weight for the last three months. (Actually, over the last twelve weeks, I've been losing at an average rate of 0.2 pounds a week. I go down, I go up, I go down, I go up. Close enough.) I've been managing my food without tracking it for the last six weeks or so, and honestly, I think I've mostly got it. When I've gained weight, it hasn't been a mystery: I know exactly what I've done wrong and what I have to do to fix it.

The challenge for me now is to keep watching it and not let it slide. To keep stepping on the scale every morning and tracking it every week and screwing down my discipline when I've let things slide too much. But I don't really see the website helping with that.

I'm paid up for this month, but unless something happens to change my mind, I'll cancel before next month's payment is due.

Which, coincidentally, will be just in time to coincide with my 2-year diet anniversary.

Cringe

Apparently, I had too much fun at my cousin's wedding festivities. I'm up another 1.4 pounds, which tips me back over my red-light siren weight of 160, to 160.2. So starting today, I'm back to tracking every little thing I eat, and weighing and measuring everything, and trying to get back to the gym (though with the daycare closed both Friday and Monday, I'm probably not getting in my 3/week until the following week).

It's all very well to relax and overeat on special occasions, but I've been letting that relaxation slide into everyday life. Time to nip that in the bud.

(I'm hungry already.)

WINCE

I gained three pounds this week.  Three.

And I don't even have a good excuse. I know exactly what went wrong.

The CSA brought us a big handful of tomatillas, two weeks ago. Now, I like Mexican food, but a little tomatilla goes a long way, and I didn't really want to be eating Mexican every night. So last weekend, I made a huge batch of guacamole. Six avocados' worth.

I had a plan, to keep myself from eating all that guacamole. Half of it, I sent with my husband to his monthly D&D game. The guys devoured it more or less instantly, and were, by all reports, most grateful.

Now, while he was at his game, I'd intended to meet up with some friends and their kids for dinner. I figured that would give my kids something to do to keep them occupied, and I could take along the rest of the guacamole and some chips, and sure I'd eat some, but so would my friends (and maybe even the kids). It was a plan!

Alas, the friends had to reschedule, and I found myself sitting at home, with the kids in bed and the husband still out... And the guac and chips were just sitting there. Begging to be eaten. I didn't eat all of it, but I probably ate more than I would've if I'd shared it.

And then I had some more the next day. And later that night, for a snack. And then the day after that, I was home alone, waiting on the A/C repair crew, and there was really only a little bit left...

It's not even the guacamole that killed me, though the gods know it's full of fat. But avocado oil is one of the healthy ones, and overindulging on avocado doesn't pack on three pounds in a week. Nope. That was the chips. It's the fried starches and the salt. Not only are they fattening, not only do they make me retain water for days afterward, but I can't stop. If there is an open bag of chips in the house, I will eat some. And then I will eat some more. And then I will lick my fingers and pry the crumbs out of the corners of the bag.

This is why I should not allow chips into my house. Three. Frikkin. Pounds. Ouch.

(But it was amazing guacamole.)

Surprise!

I'm... down to 155.8 -- a loss of 3 pounds over the week. Which is quite the surprise, as yesterday morning I was still clocking in at 158, and I spent three days eating pizza and birthday cake in not-insignificant quantities. Though as I've noted before, my scale is not in its right mind. The Wii had noticed some downward trending, too, though, so I guess it's genuine. That knocks me firmly past a grand total loss of 115 (to 117.2, precisely).

I have trouble celebrating it, though, because I'm not entirely sure what I did to deserve it.

One item I'm proud of, though: Sunday, I was at a mall with a friend, and we stopped at the food court for lunch. I'd figured on going to Chick-fil-A, because they have some reasonable options, but had forgotten that Chick-fil-A doesn't operate on Sundays. So we wandered around to try to figure out what else to get, and I eventually found myself drawn to the Japanese food place.

I was pondering the chicken teriyaki and wondering if they would let me substitute miso soup for the fried rice (because I love fried rice, and if I got it, I would certainly have eaten entirely too much of it) when my eye was caught by some fresh fruit in the display case. And my body said Oh, hell yes.

I ended up with a bowl of miso soup and a big container of fruit for lunch. Not because I was trying to be on-plan, particularly, but because it looked so damn good. And it was good. It was amazing, actually. I even ate the cantaloupe, and I don't even usually like cantaloupe.

Apparently, my body was telling me I needed fruit. Apparently, I was able to hear it, and apparently, I listened.

This is a big deal, for me. I'm really bad at hearing what my body wants to tell me. But somehow, I did it this time.

Now that... That, I'm proud of.

Little Off The Top

I lost 0.6 this week, which nudges me just past where I was before I went on vacation, to 158.2. If that .2 had fallen off, I could officially say that I've lost a total of 115 pounds, but oh well. I'm actually surprised that I lost at all, because I wound up eating out quite a lot last week, and did not meet any of my exercise goals.

I'm trying to be good this week so I can indulge this weekend. It's my daughter's birthday tomorrow, and the party is Saturday, plus a book I wrote is being released, so I've got a lot of fun stuff planned for this weekend, and a fair amount of it involves wonderful, delicious, really quite bad for me food.

But! But! But! I was in dire need of a t-back bra to wear with a dress, and I just happened to be passing by a Victoria's Secret, so I thought -- why not? I went in, and not only did they have exactly the bra I needed, in my size, and in the color I needed -- but it was incredibly comfortable. I mean, weirdly comfortable. Bras are not, in my experience (many years of it, because I was a C cup by the 7th grade), ever actually comfortable. I was insanely excited about that bra for days after I bought it. I haven't been able to shop at Victoria's Secret since early college -- and now I can't wait to go back, slightly expensive or not!

...Easy Go

Weighed in at 158.8 this morning, which is not quite back to where I was, pre-vacation, but it gets me comfortably back out of the 160s and on my way back down.

Of course, I may well see a bump up tomorrow morning. We went out to eat last night and I had a whole mess of hush puppies. With butter. ("Mess o' puppies" is a technical culinary term. I promise. Would I lie to you?) But they were soooo tasty!

I really think I'm beginning to approach equilibrium, with my weight. I'm mostly comfortable with the amount of food I'm eating (usually), and even when I go off-plan and don't log for a couple of days, I'm doing okay at holding my own. When I look at my graphs, I've gone from a fairly steady and smooth downward curve to jaggedy bumps and lurches. The overall average trend is still downward, but it's definitely starting to level off, and it looks like I'll probably even out somewhere around 155.

I could live with that.

Normal

I'm up 1.8 pounds over the last two weeks, back over the 160 mark to 160.2. (It was even higher than that, Monday, but that's not official.)

No stress. No regrets, either. I mostly tried to eat sensibly, but there was a fair amount of fattening food, and there was some stress-eating, and then there was a Garrett kiosk at the airport as I was leaving, and then I met up with a friend for fancy French food, and there was the Mike's Hard Lemonade that (once I thought to look it up) had about 50% more calories than I'd estimated (and alcohol makes me retain water for a day or so, anyway).

We did a bit of walking around, but not as much as I'd expected, and what with one thing and another, I only got to the gym once in the last two weeks. (When I went back on Monday, it kicked my ass, but it felt really good.)

So... Yeah. I splurged a bit, and I bloody well enjoyed it, and now I'm back on the wagon, and the weight is coming back off.

This is what normal people do, right? They go on vacation and splurge and gain a little, and then they buckle down to get it back under control before it can get out of hand.

Yeah. I can do that. I can do this.

Dink

Despite the summer bash and skipping the gym for the entire week, I managed to drop another 0.8 pounds, to 158.4. (It was down to 158.0 before the bash. Ah, well. I regret nothing!)

I'm only getting to the gym twice this week, though I think lugging a 2-year-old through two airports (including O'Hare) by myself will mostly make up for the missed session. Then I've got a wedding to attend and a week of living with my mother-in-law, so I'm kind of bracing for some celebration and stress eating. Not to mention what will happen if we visit Matt's grandmother and she decides I need to be Fed.

At any rate, I'll be out of town next week, so I'm missing that weigh-in. (I may step on my MiL's scale a time or two, just for a reality check, but I'm not logging an official weigh-in from a scale that isn't mine.)

Wish me luck, and see you in two weeks!

Whut.

So, I had a long weekend involving ice cream and Cool Whip and movie popcorn with "butter" and hot dogs and cheeseburgers and whipped cream and cake and potato salad and chips. I didn't so much as open my Weight Watchers log for three and a half days, and I skipped the gym on Monday. I was braced for a gain and praying I hadn't gone back over 163.

So I was kind of nonplussed, if pleased, to be down 2.2 pounds to 159.2 this morning. Which means that despite some backsliding, I've met (barely) the goal I set a while back, of being in the 150s in time for the big Summer Bash reunion thing, which is this weekend.

Yeah, I kind of expect to not be in the 150s again by next week, too.

Oh, and: crap. I'm going to two weddings this summer, and my smallest dress is an 18, and my only skirts that fit are inappropriately short and/or black. I should probably go shopping soon.

Up Again

Up again this week about half a pound, so I'm up to 161.4.

I ought to feel disappointed or something, but I'm really not. Mostly, I think, because I'm not seeing a lot in the mirror that simply losing weight will fix, anymore. Which is not to say that I like everything I see, of course, but it's not as simple as, "Yuck, I'm fat!" any more.

Matt took this picture of me a few weeks ago, and my reaction was actually, "Oh, holy crap, I'm looking bony!" When I look in the mirror before I step into the shower, that reaction is basically confirmed -- my collarbones stand out, and I can see the bones on my chest shifting. Which I've always thought looked slightly gross. My cheeks and jowls are slightly fleshy, left over from being fat, but my neck and chest, which don't have a lot of excess skin, are verging on too thin for my tastes.

The excess skin on my arms and legs is definitely gross -- I've been doing a lot of selective cropping on my summer swim pictures, let me tell you -- but losing more weight will not make my skin tighter. It will, in fact, have the opposite effect. The only things that can make my skin tight again are a) time (lots of it), and b) surgery that I can't afford. I'm going to have to reconcile myself to that, I suspect.

My hips and abdomen are bigger than I'd like -- but that's more to do with my overall body shape than mere fat. I can remember hating that my hips were wider than my chest, and the way my abdomen pooched out, back in high school, when I weighed 135. (And let's be honest: I've carried two babies in that abdomen and delivered them with those hips. My baby-factory region is not going to ever look like it did in high school.)

And balancing all that... Turning sideways in the mirror is a pleasant surprise -- my behind is smaller than it's ever been, I think. I can actually make out muscles in my arms, when the loose skin isn't in the way. Even if it's wider on the bottom than the top, I've got hourglass curves again. (My secret guilty pleasure: when I leave the daycare in the morning, the sun casts my shadow on the sidewalk in front of me, and I love to watch my hips sway when I walk back to the car.) I'm in pretty good shape for a woman who's closing in on 40 (especially considering that when I was 35, I was closing in on 300 pounds).


So a half-pound gain this week doesn't really bother me that much. I need to exercise some discipline again to keep it from going up three weeks in a row, but I'm beginning to wonder if "around 160" is where I need to stay, at least for a while.

And Up Again

That pound I lost last week? It came back. No question as to why, either: grilled fajitas with friends on Saturday, followed by Father's Day ice cream and BLTs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and more ice cream on Sunday. And then Rock Band Night Monday.

I don't think any one of them would have hurt me too bad, but put all together... yeah, I'm back up a bit.

And you know what? It was totally worth it. Summer is the best time for good food. Grilled chicken and peppers and onions, farmer's market tomatoes and corn and watermelon... You damn well better believe I went back for seconds!

So I'm back up over 160, a bit, but I'm not sweating it. I didn't gain it by slipping back into old bad habits, covertly snarfing doughnuts and candy bars in the office kitchen. I gained it eating good food with good friends and having a good time, and I'm confident I'll lose it again. No regrets.

(Is this how normal people feel about food? I could get used to it.)

B'dmp!

A one-pound loss this week nudges me, by the narrowest of narrow margins, out of the 160's and into the 150's -- 159.8, pretty much the lowest it can be (since my scale does its partials in 0.2 increments) and still be less than 160. So while I'm holding my breath against a gain next week bringing me back up (Father's Day this weekend, including a meal with my family, which is not often diet-friendly), I guess I can say I've technically met my goal of being below 160 before the Summer Bash. And if I'm careful, I'll still (again?) be in the 150s when it rolls around.(Though given the amount of food likely to be there, it's entirely possible that I might pop up afterwards, hehe. Maybe I should focus on building a buffer, there.)

My daughter begged me -- begged me -- for cauliflower soup last night. How do you turn down someone begging you for something that tasty and healthy, even knowing that the other two members of the household don't like it? You don't. So I made two kinds of soup for dinner last night. My fridge is stuffed with leftovers, now. Tasty, tasty soup leftovers.

She Scores!

Whahoo! I'm down 2.2 pounds this week, which is just enough to bump me over the 5th 10% goal that I've been staring at since (dear gods) November. 160.8 puts me only barely past the goal weight of 161, with no guarantee that I won't bounce right back up over it next week, but there we have it!

I'll have to get Matt to take a comparison photo in the next day or so so I can post that. (He took a picture of me just this weekend, actually, but I was in a swimsuit, and when I saw it, well... I was braced for the fact that my boobs were hanging down to my waist -- seriously, I need a bathing suit with an underwire or something -- but I hadn't realized how horrible my legs look; there's so much loose skin there that they look saggy and wrinkly all down my thighs. Ug. Maybe I should start saving up for cosmetic surgery to get some of this excess skin removed, as I suspect I'm too old to expect much elasticity from my skin.

Anyway, I'll get Matt to take a picture of me wearing pants in the next day or so and post it.

In theory, another 10% of my weight lost would take me down to 145, slipping me just under the BMI "normal" gate. But given how much my weight loss has slowed in the last few months, I'm wondering if 145 might be a little too ambitious (cosmetic surgery notwithstanding -- I bet I've got at least 10-15 pounds of excess skin hanging on me, here). And quite honestly, if I do have 15 pounds of excess skin hanging on me, then the amount of fat in my body is already pretty close to "normal". So I've set my next goal to 150. We'll see how long it takes me to get there, and how much effort it is to stay in that range before I decide whether to go further.

Oops.

I didn't do too badly on the writing retreat, but then I came home and promptly went out to dinner two nights in a row. Once at La Tolteca, where I overindulged in chips, and once to the County Grill, where I ate half a barbecued chicken (well, most of it) and cornbread muffins and warm potato salad...

So, er, yeah, I kind of undid last week's loss. I was at 163 this morning, up 1.4 pounds. I'm hoping some of that is water weight, from all the extra salt. But still, bad bad bad! Back on the wagon for me!

(But man, oh, man, the barbecue and the cornbread and the potato salad were worth it.)

Huhn?

What? I lost 1.8 pounds again this week! Two good weeks in a row! Am I allowed to do that? Shh, don't tell the Diet Police!

So I'm at 161.4 now, officially crossing the marker of having lost 110 pounds total. I'm only half a pound from meeting my fifth 10% goal (boy, this one is taking long enough -- I passed the fourth one in mid-November!) and I'm solidly on track for the goal I mentioned last week of being below the 160 mark in time for the summer bash in July.

Onward and downward!

Creep Creep Creep

I forgot to post last week: I'd gained a pound. It wasn't unexpected, as I'd kind of splurged with eating out for several days in a row.

This week, I'm back down to 163.2, so my net loss over two weeks was 0.8 pounds. Guess I can't complain too much. And aside from a birthday party this weekend, I don't think I've got any other big splurge occasions for a while, so hopefully I'll be able to stay on track for a bit. I'd really like to be below 160 in time for the Summer Bash in July. (That's 3.5 pounds to lose in about 7 weeks. Given that my rate of loss lately is hovering around half a pound a week... it's possible. If I can manage to stay on plan.)

I'm kind of wondering if I should set my "final" goal at around 155. I have a whole lot of extra skin sitting around these days, left over from being enormously fat and then fat and pregnant. I have a horrible case of granny-arms, and when I stand up, the extra skin from my hips and thighs falls down and bunches up around my knees, which is making me almost more self-conscious about wearing shorts than I was when I was merely fat. If I could afford to have all that excess skin surgically removed, I'd be willing to bet it would drop me by a solid 10-15 pounds. At least. (Also, it might move my boobs back up to my chest from my waist.) Alas, it's not a health hazard and I'm not wealthy, so surgery isn't really an option. And I'm old enough that my skin isn't as elastic as it used to be, and I don't think I can expect it to tighten up very much on its own. So I need to take that 10-15 extra pounds into account when I decide on my final weight.

Counting in favor of that option, by the way, is another sign of progress:  I can actually put my old high school class ring on again. (Yes, I still have it.) In fact, I can even put it on the finger it was originally measured for, though it's a snug fit and I wouldn't want to do any exercising or go out in hot weather with it. But I can get it on and off again. Which is pretty cool.

Anyway, we'll see. As slow as I'm losing these days, I've got plenty of time to decide.

Superfast

Because things are insane at work today, so I only have a minute to update: weighed in at 164 this morning, so I'm finally over the hump. Here's hoping, anyway.

Keeping my fingers crossed that it'll stay that way; I'm only 3 pounds from my next goalpost.

Coasting

Up 0.2 pounds this week, to 166.2. Which is just annoying. Especially since it was down around 165 all weekend. Stupid last-minute gains.

I've been in this general range for more than a month, now. Is it a plateau, or is it simply laziness? I'd really like to drop another 15-20 pounds before I start thinking about maintenance.

Guess I'll just hold the course and see what happens. I've got my book club tonight (munchies!) and a luncheon at work tomorrow but am hoping otherwise to be able to stick to the plan.

Dabump

Yesterday morning, I was 168.2 -- down half a pound, or thereabouts. This morning? 166.0. WTF, scale? WTF? But the Wii Fit confirmed it, so there we are: 166, down 2.6 pounds from last week, and nearly back to the 165 I was before I started letting things slip.

I think I need to cut out the evening snacking again, even when I've got the points for it. I don't know if it's that saving points for a snack makes me hungrier during the day and more inclined to cheat, or that evening food just metabolizes that much slower, or what, but I definitely lose weight faster when I cease all eating after 7pm.

I'm also, now that the weather is thinking about getting warmer and produce prices are starting to come down, thinking of trying to work salads into my lunches. It doesn't actually save me that many points -- my usual sandwich is only 4 points, and the cobb-ish salad I had yesterday was 5 (egg, avocado, meat, and cheese add up fast -- thank goodness for 0-calorie dressing!) but it does drastically increase my veggie intake and shake up my metabolism a little so it's not anticipating the same thing every day.

I've been getting some fantastic compliments from people lately -- kind of weird how that seems to come and go in waves, isn't it? But I'm not complaining! I don't see a lot of change in myself, day-to-day, so it's always good to be reminded that I am still changing, and for the better.

Aye-yup.

As anticipated, I'm up 3.6 pounds this week, to 168.6. These things happen, especially when I go off the diet and then go on vacation. I'm trying to get my fanny back into the wagon now, and hopefully it'll go as easy as it came.