"This is the moment, tonight is the night, we'll fight till it's over!"

Thanks to the internet I have had more reasons to listen to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and after listening to this macklemore's tiny desk concert everyday for a week I think I should probably buy the album. That's where this quote comes from.  Pretty good idea! The songs I've listened to have really good hooks, good words and trumpet, how could it go wrong. (I used to play the trumpet in band and I have a real fondness for music that features trumpets.)

This week's meeting was sad as I learned that my new favorite leader is moving away and that today was his last meeting. (Sigh...now I need a new crush.) During the meeting we talked about managing treats and a few people talked about seeing things only once a year during the holidays. One woman equated it to depriving yourself throughout the year and then binging because you "never" get to eat it the rest of the year.  Another woman said something I really liked to combat that idea. Remember, if you really want to eat it you can just have a little and if you still want more tomorrow or the next day then you can eat it. It's not only available today.  There is no cookie apocalypse. This idea great for things like cheese log, coffee bread and Christmas cookies.

My leader also posed an important question. How much of the eating that we do during the holidays is because we are actually hungry? not very much.  I want to try to remedy that this year. (If thanksgiving was an indication I think I will do pretty well. I just need to eat 3/4 veggies and fruits and then everything else. Oh and be cautious about alcohol.) Then, we talked a lot about why we are at weight watchers and why we joined.  One of our members used to be addicted to donuts and then he joined and now he chooses not eat them.  Our leader suggested, What do you want more than the donut? or what trumps the donut? He also suggested that we do a bit of thinking about what we want to feel like in a few weeks around the beginning of 2013.

I wanted to do a little bit of thinking about that here. I want to do the best that I can with the given circumstances, don't know how bored we will all be stuck inside if it is snowing the whole time we are in the mountains.  (There is a pool table there so at the very least I can get really good a pool and maybe if I bring cards we can play poker too.) I want to feel good about my choices and also that I did not deprive myself or start to get resentful of the fact that everyone else could drink all the time and I can't.   (I have to be very specific about when and how I drink.)  I just need to go for walks and do as much as I can activity wise. I think that it is realistic for me to loose next week and maintain the week of x-mas, I'd love to loose the week of new year's but I don't know yet if that is realistic. I guess I should just take it one week at a time. :)

I had good success last week at work thanks to packing my lunch the night before and pre-tracking.  I had to think about it at home for 30min or so but the next day it was out of my head and I felt a lot less stress about food. Nope I can't eat that, I already tracked.  I also started talking to the candy bowl in my head.  "Nope, I don't want you."  I'm finally starting to use the active link to get to my 100% every day instead of using it as a metric to see how I did that day. Yesterday I put it in the computer to see how far off from 100% I was, (I was at 78% or something) so I put on some music and had a living room dance party. I got to 108% by the end of the day. I like that I can wear it and I don't really have to track exercise specific unless I want to, I can just plug it in and see how I did. (Yet another thing I don't have to think about.)

This week a small but steady loss -.06 (half a pound).  I still feel really good as I ate out a few meals, had a few drinks and went to a 6 year old's birthday party yesterday.  -.06 is great!  -37.8 total, -40 here I come! 

I figured it had been a while since I wore my hair down in a picture for the blog. It is getting longer and longer but it won't show itself. (Instead it curls up more and more.)

"Cut it out and then Restart."

When I was in college I used to make mix Cd's (or mix tapes as my sister calls them) for different occasions or when I was bored.  The way I put the songs together takes a patented recipe of different styles, tempos, instrumentals and a good title. I spend a long time looking through my library, thinking about songs I know I want to include and looking for other songs that have titles that might relate to the theme of the title. Then I put them in an order and listen to the tops and tails of each song next to each other and move them accordingly. Then I listen to the whole things a few times before I publish them. It takes kind of a long time. I tend to get compliments on them so let me know if you want me to burn you a few old ones. (I watched High Fidelity a lot in college and I was definitely inspired by the way that the main character talks about how to make a perfect mix tape.) As Xmas is coming close I decided to make a few mixes to give away as stocking stuffers, so I have been working on them. (Spoiler Alert Cindy.)

I was listening to one when I started to write this blog and I started listening to the lyrics of the Florence and the Machine song, "Shake it out". I think the whole lyric is "tonight I am going to cut it out and Restart." I really like it and it relates to this two week period.  Last week,  after an almost 2lb gain I faced a week of fun employment, which means a week at home.  My room needed a lot of attention and I was beating myself up about not cleaning it.  So I cleaned the rest of my house and made and put up Christmas Decorations.  Then at the last possible day, I started to clean my room.  I am excited to say that though I am not finished I am very very pleased with my progress.  (I am going to do a few 20/10's and 45/15's this week to finish it and then there will be many many photos. 20/10's are a concept via http://unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/ IT IS VERY HELPFUL and also funny.)

It is amazing how much better I feel this week than last having conquered most of the big ugly. I knew I would feel better but it just gets so overwhelming.  I babysat for my niece and nephew and helped my mom make a project on the sewing machine.  The quilt my sister and I made got to my cousin and he (and my aunt) really liked it. What else happened, oh yeah MORE ARTS AND CRAFTS!  I maybe am really excited about free tutorials for things.  I found some cool things that I really really really want to make and it is getting me motivated to have a good clean workspace.  Today after WW, I went to the local craft store to get a Smash notebook.  Not only did I manage to get through the store with just buying the smash notebook and nothing else, when I got the register the sales clerk gave me a coupon that made the smash book 50% off!!! 

Now to the new ww.  OMG I love it.  It is perfect for those of us who know the plan works but need more help with the program management.  (I am so excited that the meeting I have been to have been more about things that don't relate to food than food all the time.)  It is kind of strange but I feel like I have re-joined ww, without ever stopping. They moved the WW from down the street from my house to inside a little mall in a big mall in Emeryville and it has a tv and green chairs. The plan changed and I have been going to a different meeting the past few weeks because I keep not being able to go on Sunday mornings.  I really like the vibe and the people that are at this new meeting.  I really like the leader (I maybe have a little crush on him...) I do feel a bit of guilt after having gone to the same leader for over a year (I really really like her still), but I am really enjoying this new experience, it's shaking the program up a bit for me.  I think I can probably manage these new meetings for a while too...

This week I lost 4.6 lbs!!! -37.2 total And this time I know how I did it.  I made good choices at the grocery store and made good interesting food to eat and had good snacks at the ready and I tracked.  Last week we talked about routines and I started to think about why I was going into the kitchen to eat.  It was empowering. This week I am working days, and I did a lot of prep so I have meals ready to go to work and ideas for things to make when I get home. We'll see how well all my prep work works.

Here's me this week!

I am very excited.

Side View

If I could figure out how to make a GIF I would have for this and two more photos...:)

It''s new program time!!!!

Every December (or most Decembers) WW rolls out the new plan for the next year.  I think they are pretty smart to test it out and/or fix the bugs the month before New Years when people traditionally feel the need to join WW.  Plus we the members get to learn it before everyone else too!

I went to a different meeting this week and it was a pleasant surprise.  The leader was good and I am excited about the new program. The whole approach seems much more positive and almost catered to me. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

This week I went to a friends birthday party (did pretty well except that the cake was lemony and amazing and I had two too many pieces but I did allow myself to drink a bit.)  Which all would have been fine except for the fact that the next night was an awesome holiday party and I got drunk for the first time in a long time. I don't think I had realized how long it has been since I had been really drunk. I got to experience being drunk as a novelty and a thing that I remembered each part of.  It's been quite a while since I have experience that. Let's just say I am currently a cheap drunk. 

I managed to gain a bit of weight this week. I had a feeling I was going to so I didn't get as sad as I might have. Oh well!  I am excited about succeeding this week both work wise and WW wise and I am hopeful that I can cross a lot of things off my to do list.

Fall Back on to plan.

I am kind of floored and a little (more than a little) excited because I just went to Weight Watchers and I lost a pound.  A WHOLE POUND!

I have not been feeling very well this fall and thus not counting or trying to follow the plan or blogging. (And I am eating lots of things I normally wouldn't eat.)  Last week, I was feeling so poorly that I made myself try to get out of the funk. So I cooked some food with a lot of vegetables.  (I have noticed over the past year that I feel significantly better if I manage to eat more vegetables, even if I can't stop eating candy at work or eat ice cream every day.) Funny, as the week went on and I ate the meals that I made earlier in the week, I felt more in control and was able to make better smarter choices even when I didn't feel as well.  Example:  I have been working at 8am this week. Due to the depression,  I have a really hard time getting out of bed early enough to take public transit to get to work on time and have time to eat breakfast.  I have been loosing on the public transit portion but I have been managing to make breakfast and bring lunch.  One grumpy morning I really wanted to get a morning pizza, a very lovely thing with prosciutto and an egg on top. It is a kind of heaven.  However, I managed to choose to have a homemade sausage sandwich and it was fine.  I didn't crave the morning pizza anymore.

Sometimes I think a surprise weight loss is just what I need to get back on track.  Think of how much better I would do if I managed to follow the plan.  PLUS, I am one pound away from being below 200 LBS.  Wouldn't it be so nice if I could do that before Thanksgiving and then maintain (or even loose more) the week of Thanksgiving. 

As of today I've lost 33.2 lbs, I bought at new cookbook!

Please excuse the non clarity of this, I need to clean my webcam. 

Anniversary

On Sept. 11th, I celebrated the first anniversary of my re-committing to Weight Watchers.  I know I am a few weeks late but I thought I'd do a re-cap of things that have changed since last September.  I lost 30 lbs or so, My sister got married, I got a new roommate, I worked on a lot of shows, a few good friends moved away and I turned into a hipster. (Not really, but I did buy skinny jeans.) 

I went from a BMI of 37.8 to one of 32.6 which is almost in the overweight category.  I also decided to start calling this "Operation Slenderize". Which is totally ridiculous and when I say it in my head I say it in a very Michael Bay movie kinda way.  (I think there are a bunch of strobes going off and some smoke, maybe a few confetti cannons.) 

I think overall, I am really happy that I have been able to use this blog to verbalize some of the things that I have been struggling with in my head for years.  I like that I can be open and honest and true, (and silly and whatever.) I am slowly gaining some self-confidence about body. 

Two weeks ago, I bought some skinny jeans.  They are a 14 and they are too big (thanks stretchy fabric!) yet I can barely fit into my 16's in another brand.  Alas.

I almost fell over right as the computer took the photo.

It's going to be a good year!

Loose for Good! (and a bunch of links)

 I am feeling quite a bit better since my last post.  Thanks to all of you who have been encouraging me to go for walks and just saying hi. It means a lot to me.  I've been wanting to update the blog for two or three weeks but I have been opening the blog publisher then I stare and stare and I don't actually write anything.  Anyway, here I am doing it.  PHEW! 

Loose for Good is a campaign that Weight Watchers started a few years ago, which the company will donate a dollar for every pound lost by members.  (I think it caps at about $1 million.) Some people bring in the amount of weight they have lost in canned food.  It's kind of amazing to see what that amount of weight looks like outside of one's body. Loose for good always inspires me because my high school used to have a HUGE canned food drive. (We tried and succeeded to be in the Guinness Book of World records and we won a radio station concert.) I always got super motivated to do it and spent countless hours in front of the grocery store asking for donations. Plus, I think it is a great concept that loosing weight (gained by eating too much food) will give food to people who need it. 

I have been really excited to blog because I discovered a few very cool blogs and projects surrounding weight loss that I wanted to share.  First off, this is a photo project that has been making the rounds via NPR,  http://juliakozerski.com/changingroom .  It is a collection of self portraits taken by a college art student who lost 160lbs and took photos of herself trying on clothes at various stages of her weight loss in changing rooms.  I knew that they had bloggers on the WW site but I didn't feel particularly attached to any of them till I found these two blogs, Four Inch Heels and Two wheels,  College,  Cocktails and Carrots It looks like you can read these even if you are not a member.  The first one is written by a late 30 something rockabilly lady who lives in NYC and I super relate to her and the things she writes about.  I love that she takes photos of herself running. I don't think I would be as brave as she is. I think I could be friends with her in real life. The second one is written by a college student (or maybe former student?) who writes about being in college and weight loss.  I am a bit removed from this but I do understand the whole being single part and cooking for one, which I guess is why I don't relate to the other bloggers who have kids and husbands.

 Last night I stumbled upon a website called Just Roni, which is full of really good articles and photos and stories about a woman who like me lost weight on WW but has struggled with yo-yo dieting in her past.  She has these three posts called 3 steps to a healthier you, I've linked to the first one so you can read them. I think I want to print them out and put them near my bed so that I can read them every day when I get up in the morning.  She says something in the second part that I think may help me re-frame my whole way of thinking:

"There is no such thing as being on plan or off plan! We are just making it up! Think about it, your diet consist of everything you eat. EVERYTHING. Just because you ate something that may be considered "bad" doesn’t mean you broke your diet, it just means you ate something "bad." How does that affect your next meal? It doesn’t!"

Wow!  It's amazing how I have trained myself, especially when I am not on WW, to beat myself up about being on plan vs. off plan. It is very hard to get out of this cycle, but I am going to try.

This week I lost 0.8 lbs.  Which I am excited about because 1.) I'm in tech, and 2.) I went a little crazy at the beginning of the week and spent most of my extra weekly points. I kinda freaked out about it and started to eat like I had blown it (ie. eat when bored, stressed, out a lot etc.) Because I had to be at the theatre (that I have to drive to) for super long hours, I did not get a ton of exercise. I tried to wake up and go for a walk before rehearsal, but it was not gonna happen. On Wednesday, I was feeling out of control and instead of what I normally would have done (gone crazy and given myself a "free pass" to eat crap because of stress and being annoyed because I couldn't do my normal exercising).  I realized that I still had half a week before weigh in and if I ate within my daily points range and got some exercise, I could probably stay at the same weight and not gain. I decided to go for a walk in the town where the theater is during our dinner break to get exercise and I managed to completely avoid the box of sweets that was delivered as a gift to the director and actors. Then today, I lost almost a pound.  SUCCESS! The scale is getting closer and closer to the next big goal!!!

                                                                 -32 lbs

Summer's Peak

Once upon a time, in a not so distant place there lived a girl. Sometimes this girl felt very happy and content. She would go out into the sunshine and walk around lake and up hills with her friends.  She spent her days reading plays, looking at photographs, going to meetings and making CAD drawings of her ideas. A few weeks a month she would spend all of her waking time in different dark rooms with a lot of empty seats playing with lights and collaborating with friends. This was what she loved.  She was good at this.

At the very end of summer, after a particularly lovely show filled with lovely lighting and lovely collaborating, the girl became very very sad. She could read plays, look at photographs, and practice making CAD drawings of her ideas, but there were no meetings scheduled, no friends to collaborate with. She spent all her time alone in her apartment trying to distract herself from the bareness of her calendar. Every morning after breakfast, she sat on the same side of her big white couch with her laptop on her lap.  She got stuck.  The sun would shine tauntingly through the windows but still she was immobile. Days passed as she moved through emotions: lonely, bored, sad, angry that she could not cut herself from the couch and enjoy her time off. She filled her head with clouds of negative thoughts. She was so mad at herself that she could not be productive.  Quietly stewing alone, she realized that it was harder and harder to get unstuck from the couch.  (This was not the first time she had gotten stuck to the couch.)

One day, she managed to get unstuck long enough to run a few errands including one to a dark room where some of her friends were working.  While she was out, she managed to tell a few friends how bad she was feeling.  As soon as she started talking she felt some of the clouds start to go away. She told her mother that she was depressed and her mother wisely suggested that the girl go help her mother with some organizing projects. She went away from her couch and her apartment, with her laundry, to visit her family. 

The girl became a laundry machine, washing sheets and towels and socks and shirts. She recycled and organized and remembered that her mother who works one day a week for pay, really has 5 complicated part time volunteer jobs.  And though the girls own room is messy (a thing that makes her crazy rather than comforting her), she can actually see very clearly and easily how to organize things that do not belong to her.  While she was at the house on the water, she was kept busy. Cooking, talking, organizing. She had no time to sit on a couch with her laptop and get stuck. When she left two days later, her eyes were as bright as the sunshine. By the end of the week, emails flew and the girl got to put a few orange meetings into her color coded calendar.

Things that made the girl feel better: Routine. Eating delicious vegetables. Conversations with people on the phone or in person, rather than trying to feel connected via 140 characters. Watching the hummingbirds.  Talking to mothers about vegetable gardens that yield so much we jokingly call it her farm. You can almost finish a project and it feels almost as good as finishing. It is not possible to clean and reorganize a whole room in one day. Move around as much as you can.

Remember sad stormy girl! You are in control of your own loneliness. Don't get stuck to the couch. Make plans. Go outside. Meet people. Pretend you are the sunshine.

Oakland is so great even the Pelicans want to come here.

Although, the past few months the journey has been a bit rocky. I am feeling very good about how wondrously the past few weeks have been.  Apparently my brain and/or my metabolism needed the time off and/or chaos.  I am totally re-committed and so excited about how much progress I've made in the past few weeks. In addition to the stress of the wedding which was not very stressful overall, but it was a bit stressful and it got me thinking about how much I want to share my life with someone and I want to do it fast. Not to mention that I am close to having lost the most weight I have ever lost on WW. 

Psychologically I am very aware of my past ww experiences. I am very good at losing 25lbs and then either life gets in the way and then I give up for whatever reason.  This time I am pushing through past the 25lbs and I am freaking out about the future.  I know that I have weighed this weight before and I have a while still to go, but my attitude about my figure is changing.  I want to wear clothes that fit me, I want to be more on trend with my clothes and I want to be sexy.  I'll keep you posted on this freakout situation, but for now I think I have neutralized it for a little while.

This week I've lost another 2 lbs this week and now am very very very close to having lost 30lbs.

I went for a walk today around the lake and a pair of pelicans are here.  I love pelicans! I am so happy that I got to see them fly around the lake and swoop down and pick up fish in their bills. I didn't wear sunscreen, so I got a mean sunburn, but only on the tops of my shoulders.


Next week here I come! (PS. I think I need to buy some new exercise clothes....)