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
