What do I *need*?

In the past hour I have told myself several things.

I *need* something to eat.
I *need* a snack.
I *can't* handle today without a snack break.
I *deserve* to go get something yummy out of the vending machine.
I *should* get my husband to take me out to dinner.
I *need* a margarita when today is done. And some molten chocolate cake.

I know I'm not truly hungry, and if I was I have some almonds and a juicy tangelo for an afternoon snack. But I'm not hungry. I am overwhelmed, I am tired, I am frustrated, I am confused. I feel incompetent and nervous and anxious. Work has gotten very busy all of a sudden and I feel like I can't handle it. On top of that, I didn't get much sleep last night, and the sleep I did get was filled with stressful dreams.

I am craving not sweets, but the feeling of relaxation, soothingness, release that I get from diving headfirst into something delicious. I feel like I need that little chemical escape from my rough day.

So, I am avoiding that vending machine for now. Maybe if I can't resist I will have some WW oatmeal (2 points) for my afternoon snack ... it has a bit of sweetness but not nearly as much sugar as the Peanut M&Ms I'm craving.

The Plan for Now

I have set myself 3 mini-goals to shoot for in the next few weeks, maybe months. My last weigh in brought me to 260.2 ... so my first mini-goal is to lose 5.2 lbs from there, which will bring me to 255. The next 2 mini-goals are 250 & 245.

It kind of kills me to think that achieving these weights is some major achievement, because it's still so much higher than I ever expected to get to. But I have to put the past behind me and focus on where I'm at and where I want to be. And I'm not going to get under 200 if I don't first hit 255, 250, and 245. Those 15 lbs won't magically go away.

Tomorrow I am going to my WW meeting. I skipped last week's ... I don't think I had a good reason to skip except that I wasn't feeling "on" in terms of WW and I have been giving a friend a ride to work in the mornings. My husband was going to cover for me that morning, but I wound up saying it was ok, I'd do it, and skipping my meeting. This was not at my husband's urging, I just used giving E a ride as an excuse to get out of my meeting.

I'm really very good at making excuses when it behooves my inner brat. I'm really good at justifying the easy way out or immediate gratification.

I recently vented to some friends about how scared I am getting of my weight and how out of control I feel, and most of them are urging me to talk to a doctor because they think it's bizarre that my weight is so out of control. I will mention my concern about my weight to my doctor & endocrinologist, but I have to say I'm skeptical that there is a medical explanation for it. I mean, maybe it's a side effect of my anti-depressants. But the fact is that I eat way too much and I don't exercise regularly. It's not as if I'm eating right and working out and am still stuck at a high weight or gaining weight. I mean, I bet you dollars to doughnuts that if you counted my points on a "bad" day (of which I have a lot of when I am not actively being a WW nut) it would be over 70 points per day. My target is 33. Guess why I'm not losing weight unless I'm following WW strictly?

And yet I feel like there's a lot of enabling being done. I feel like people are constantly telling me to be easier on myself and to stop being such a perfectionist. But I'm very all-or-nothing in the way I do things...in the way I do almost everything. If I'm not being strict on WW, then heck, I am going hog-wild eating whatever strikes my fancy and beyond. And yes I really do know why that doesn't make any sense...but the thing is I have trouble listening to my body. I don't really have a sense of hunger or appetite. I'm basically always food focused. If it's there, and it's tasty, I want to eat it, and I will eat to the point of feeling sick or running out of tasty things to eat. Unless I am being somewhat strict with myself, and then I am still food-focused, but I'm deliberately limiting what I eat.

So, I don't really know what to do with myself. I feel like I could make a few little rules for myself, but there are a lot of rules I feel I should impose on myself that I wouldn't naturally follow.

For example, I feel like I should:
- Exercise more (at least 4-5x per week)
- Eat more fruit & vegetables
- Write down what I eat
- Not drink liquid calories, including alcohol, except maybe red wine
- Not keep sugar in the house and eat sugar-free foods when possible
- Drink more tea, especially green tea
- Drink more water, count the glasses of water I drink
- Try harder to remember to take vitamins
- Cook more at home instead of takeout & delivery & convenience foods
- Learn new recipes
...

There has to be more than that. My life is ruled by "shoulds" and "ought tos". Then again, WW is full of shoulds & ought-tos. Where is a happy medium in there that will get me some results? I once was very religious about my exercise program for 2 consecutive months - I went to the gym 4x per week and did 30 minutes of intense cardio along with alternating rotations of upper & lower body weight training. But I didn't change my eating. And I gained weight! Not much, but I gained when I expected to lose! Listen, you can tell me it was muscle, but if I'm not losing a single pound in 2 months, and I'm over 200 lbs at 5'4", that's a problem. No wonder I didn't stay motivated when I finally stepped on the scale!

So, some things need to change together. Diet and exercise, not one or the other. They are both in serious need of repair. But the enormity of the changes I have to make overwhelms the crap out of me. No wonder I tend to burn out after a couple weeks of being "good".

Right now I'm trying to take this one day at a time. Overall I've felt so mixed up, confused, frustrated, upset. I can't worry about tomorrow or yesterday anymore. At least for today, I am going to stay OP. It won't necessarily be easy - I already had an argument with myself over getting a chocolate chip muffin for a "second breakfast" (I know, what am I, a hobbit?), but the part of me that wants to reclaim my health and control over my weight won that debate. It's not to say I don't still want some junk, but I want to get through today even more.

I might start doing online OA meetings again. There is a place online where they are held every 3 hours on the hour. It's kind of amazing how something like that has remained so organized and well-maintained.

Attention Jerks

Stop trying to leave comments promoting your diet "vitamins" on my blog. I moderate all comments before they're posted, so it's a tremendous waste of both of our time.

I've re-added the word verification bullshit to the commenting. I'm sorry that I had to do this, but you can blame "Bret" for this.

Day two of charting my mood, energy levels, meal components, hunger levels, appetite, etc. One thing I have noticed is that my typical meals are mainly simple carbohydrates and fats. Something tells me that this is going to have to change eventually. But for the time being, I'm going to keep on tracking until all 7 days' worth of charts are filled out. I'm kind of antsy because I want to read ahead in the book, but I'm not supposed to read past where I've gotten to. Probably so as to not bias what I'm eating right now or what I put as my responses to how I feel before/after eating.

One thing I can say is that I feel downright queasy today. It might be stress - I've certainly got a lot of little things that are bugging me. It also might be poor diet - we've been getting takeout a lot. You know what I'm craving? A big bowl of oatmeal with raisins and walnuts and honey. It's not exactly low cal, but it's got some stuff I think I need. Plus it's bland and the thought of eating it doesn't make me feel green in the gills. I'd love to crave a big salad right now, but it makes me feel sick to think of eating veggies right now. I could go for fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, nuts - basically things that are mostly bland and/or sweet. I might be able to eat eggs.

I'm also very tired. My wrist is in so much pain that I keep waking up from it hurting. It's worrying me that it's not getting any better despite the wrist brace and Advil. I have a doctor's appointment, but they couldn't squeeze me in until a week from today. And I'm sure that will just be a springboard to seeing a specialist and getting some x-rays or whatever they do.

I feel like I'm always going to the doctor. Does it seem that way to you, dear readers? I must sound like a total wreck. Today I just saw my ob/gyn for my yearly happyfuntime appointment. So that wasn't a "sick" visit or anything. And I see my psych dr about every 4-6 weeks (for now) and my therapist every 2-3 weeks. I see my primary doctor once a year for physicals (I'm actually good about this) and whenever I'm sick. And I also see my endocrinologist every year because ... ugh ... I have a "goiter". That word, goiter, makes me sick. So let's call it an "enlarged thyroid". It bothers me because there is nothing medically wrong with my thyroid except that it is enlarged, so we have to just keep an eye on it indefinitely. Fun fun fun. So I guess I do see a lot of doctors. I hope I get my weight in check SOON so that I don't have to add more to my list when my health catches up to my weight.

Anyway, I'm very tired. I do feel like I sorely need a good workout tonight, at least a WATP 2-mile, maybe a WATP 3-mile. When I skip too many workouts and get lazy I start to feel like my blood is going stagnant in my muscles, like instead of pumping fresh red blood, it's pumping pancake syrup or molasses. I know that's not true, but I just start to feel gross all over my body - not in a fat way, but in a very lazy, sluggish way. I need to listen to that and get my butt moving a little more regularly. I know it will give me a little extra pep and a nice mood boost in addition to fixing the slug-like feeling.

Well, I will be out & about most of the weekend so I doubt I'll post again until Monday, so have a great weekend, everybody!

My Current Project

Let me say one thing before I explain what I'm doing - I just don't want to hear about how it's a waste of time and [insert name of diet] works for you and there's no need to experiment with anything else. Sorry to be snippy, but I'm tired of comments that seem to almost be chastising me for experimenting with different things.

That said, I am reading a book I picked up. It has a very cheesy title: How To Make Almost Any Diet Work, by Anne Katherine. Despite the cheesalicious title, it seems to focus very much on learning how the chemicals in food affect your body / appetite / mood / etc.

Right now I am doing an exercise in the book that involves filling out a chart every day for 7 days. You're supposed to log your mood / appetite / hunger / other crap every hour, and also log the general composition of each meal (sort of what % of your meal was protein, fat, simple carbs, complex carbs). The goal is to just eat "normally", not trying to be "good" or "bad", for this week, to get a good picture of how the foods I'd normally eat affect me.

So far I'm staying on top of the chart, but man, every hour is a bit daunting. I do think that at the end of the week, it will be very interesting to analyze the results of this. I've never really dedicated myself to diagnosing a problem in any great detail, so I'm looking forward to the next step and analysing the data.

In other news...man, I'm sleepy today! Zzz.

It's not fair

This is something I posted on the BCB message board in response to a post about being angry about having to do all this WW stuff. That's a sentiment I feel frequently, and this was my response. I'm posting it here because it's something that I need to remind MYSELF of quite frequently.

It's NOT fair that it seems like a lot of people can eat all kinds of crap, and still be skinny. It's not fair that we have to watch what we eat to lose weight and stay at a healthy weight. It's not fair that it seems like the easiest & tastiest foods are the worst for you.

One thing I have been working on accepting is that it's NOT FAIR but that life is often not fair. We can't compare our lots in life to other people's. Someone else will always be better looking, richer, luckier, have a faster metabolism, etc. It's not fair that a twit like Paris Hilton has the world handed to her on a silver platter while we have to actually work for a living. It's not fair that so-and-so can pig out and never gain an ounce.

But I think another issue is seeing what we want to see. We see people indulging in foods in restaurants and maybe assume that they can eat whatever they want without gaining anything, just because they are skinny and eating junk food. But maybe they ate light for the rest of the week so that they could indulge in a meal out. Maybe they run a few miles a day. Maybe they only go out once a month. Maybe they will only eat half of their meal, and give the rest to their boyfriend or dog or eat it for lunch. Maybe they'll skip dessert.

I think one thing a lot of us WW-ers discount is that a lot of "naturally" thin people still eat a normal/low budget of calories, or are very active. I have noticed that the same size 2 coworker of mine who pigs out like you wouldn't believe at company lunches (seriously, think of what a sumo wrestler would eat, and then double it), also eats salads and sashimi for lunch MOST of the time. And she goes to the gym almost every morning and spends her weekends biking around for fun. And some of my other skinny coworkers who sometimes eat junk OFTEN are eating light yogurts and Lean Cuisines for lunch and not sneaking snacks all the time during the workday. And they're always talking about new workout classes they're checking out at the gym.

So...I guess the point is that most people have to strike a balance between what they eat. There is no reason you can't go to a microbrewery and have a juicy burger and an awesome beer. But either you might have to budget the rest of the week to indulge in a big meal like that, or you may choose instead to eat HALF of your burger and get some salad with ff dressing instead of the fries that come with. Or you can earn some APs before you go out to eat by going for a hike or bike ride or going for a run or whatever.

Most of us don't get a free ride in terms of our fitness, weight, or finances. It sucks, but we just need to accept it and instead find ways to indulge within the rules of our bodies. We can indulge, it just needs to be in balance with the rest of our week.

Weekend Recap

This weekend was not so bad. Friday morning I went to my WW meeting, as I already mentioned, and had a 1.4 lb loss. Yippie! Friday & Saturday were both good OP days where I had some indulgences but kept things under control and in moderation.

Sunday has not been the best. I woke up at 6 am and binged. I haven't had a binge like that in a long time. Thinking about why it happened, I think my trigger point was making a stupid mistake yesterday with my finances - I used the wrong card to pay for something and I have to wait until Tuesday to work it out because of the bank holiday on Monday. I am also very stressed because I am supposed to have an appt with my new ob/gyn Monday but I've had this breakthrough bleeding for over a week. I am on the Pill and I am not supposed to have this right now. It's starting to worry me because it's been going on for a week and has only gotten heavier. So I have to remember to call my new dr's office tomorrow and explain the situation. I have no idea if they'll still want me to come in or what. I'm also stressed because I brought my car in to be serviced over the weekend, but it needs so much work that they told me to bring it back for later this week. So it's just another thing unfinished.

I also am feeling down because my wrist has been hurting me and none of the usual treatments (splint, ice, advil) are helping.

Anyway, the good thing about today is that it's mostly over. I'm probably going to take a bubble bath and go to sleep in a little bit. I am feeling kind of depressed, but tomorrow is a new day.

Doing better

Today is a lot better than last night. A good night's sleep and a good WW meeting have definitely done me well. I was delighted to find that I lost 1.4 lbs since my last WI. I don't know why, but I expected to see a gain. So I was really happy about that.

And there's just something about a fresh new WW week that's refreshing and renewing. I feel more optimistic. One day/week at a time. That's all there is to it.

I was supposed to go out for sushi for lunch with a coworker, but she's out today. I guess I will go home, have some fresh fruit & a Lean Cuisine, and maybe take a little nap or read for a little bit. I loooooove going home in the middle of the day. It feels so luxurious.

Really Down

I'm feeling really down. I don't know why. I have this soul-aching despair going on. I think once again I have no belief or faith in myself that I can lose weight. And even if I can lose some weight, I don't believe I can keep it off, or even lose nearly what I need to lose.

Where is this despair coming from? Why am I hurting right now? I can't even figure out what triggered it. I just feel so useless and like my whole life and all my efforts are pointless.

Maybe this isn't just a weight loss thing. I just wish I could make some progress on my weight loss once and for all. I'm not myself in this body. I'm something a lot more pathetic and weak than I should be. The past 4 or 5 years have really destroyed things in me and I don't know why that happened, or how or if I can get them back. Where's the fire, the hope, the strength, the optimism?

I'm sticking with my plan to go to my WW meeting first thing tomorrow morning. Whatever the scale says, I'll take. I just have to go, and face it. No more claiming to be a Weight Watcher without going to meetings. It's not fair to myself. Tomorrow starts a new WW week, a clean start.

I need to realize that this is a temporary mood. This is my depression speaking. And it's worse because of my period. It's always so much worse around my period. It will pass...I just need to hang on.

I need to cheer myself up. I will take a warm shower and get into my comfiest pajamas and get into bed and read a magazine for a little bit, and then get enough sleep. It will be ok. I'll be fine.

It really pisses me off that my existence is often just finding ways to bribe myself out of a really dark depression. There has to be more to life than this. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot.

I love exercise!

I love exercise! Why oh why didn't I jump back in sooner? It feels so good. Maybe the actual working out isn't always The Most Fun Thing Evar, but afterwards my mind just feels so much clearer and my mood so much better. Hooray for un-assing the sofa!

Today was also a nice WW day in terms of what I ate. I did let myself get suckered into buying a new flavor of Right Bites at the supermarket (Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper cookies - chocolate mint, come on, I'm not a robot!) and I had 2 bags (4 points) for dessert, and those came out of my WPAs. Still, overall my meals were balanced and I feel good.

So, diet & exercise are back in check, next comes sleep. Which literally is coming next, because I am going to bed...oh...right now. Goodnight!

It can't be over...!

The weekend can't be over yet...it just can't! Ugh, ok, fine, maybe it is. But I don't have to like it.

Things in Shrinky-land are ok. I am mostly better and mostly caught up on sleep (but I am up and it's quite late, so I have to stop doing this).

Something weird has been happening. I am getting a ridiculous amount of e-mail from this blog, which weirds me out because this site doesn't get much traffic and isn't very good.

I also realize that some of my friends from BCB have noticed I've gone a little silent. I'm still posting and I'm still browsing, but I have decided the following:

1. I am going to continue with WW Flex Plan (I read the South Beach book this weekend, really unimpressed ... could it be any more vague?!)
2. I am going to track my accountability on the eTools Plan Manager.
3. I am not going to track my accountability on BCB anymore for the time being.

So...I haven't left, I just needed to bring the focus back to myself for awhile. I'm kind of indulging in being self-centered for awhile while I take care of myself.

Because of the holidays & being sick, I haven't been to a meeting since before Christmas, but I am going in and weighing in on Friday (Jan 12). I also think I may start home weigh-ins on a daily basis so I can chart daily fluctuations, just because I think it would be interesting.

Well, it's bedtime, and then time to start a brand new workweek (yay?). I had a nice weekend & I hope all of you did too.

Much Better

First off, thank you to everyone who left "feel better" comments - it's much appreciated!

I am finally feeling a lot better, both physically & mentally. I guess the holidays are a rough time for me, so I was feeling kind of down, and combining that with feeling very sick *and* sore, and my usual depression & self-loathing ... well, I was in a bad place.

But last night I had an appointment with that crazy therapist (Nutty McAppletree), and I went in prepared to explain my personal frustrations and goals in a clearer way. And I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure she got it. That it's not just about emotional eating, that I'm at no loss for things to do to fill my time, and that all of this goes way back to my childhood.

And amazingly enough, she said two things that struck a chord with me.

1. That I should view taking care of myself (in terms of diet, exercise, beauty routines, having fun, doing things I want to do to reach my goals in life) as a way of making up for the fact that I wasn't taken care of in the best way when I was a child. That because my parents were so absorbed in their own problems, I missed out on a lot, so it's only right for me to make up for lost time now by nurturing myself and pampering myself.

2. She used the metaphor of tending a garden to taking care of yourself. That just a little attention and care each day over the course of weeks or months or year can keep my personal garden improving and becoming better and better, but that letting myself sink into these months-long depressions where I neglect my body, appearance, finances, apartment, relationships causes the garden to start to wilt and die, which makes it harder for me to get things blooming again. I guess I just really like the idea of having this garden with so much potential to be beautiful.

At any rate, I am feeling optimistic. I woke up this morning and had a healthy and nutritious breakfast, took the time to put on some makeup so I look all pretty, and am generally feeling just dandy.

My friend lent me her copy of the South Beach Diet book to read through this weekend. Her & her husband have had some serious success with the program in the past, and have recommitted to it in the New Year. I am fairly familiar with how the program works, and once you get into the Phase 2 part it is actually very similar to Weight Watchers' Core program. But at the same time...I dunno. I can see the benefit in starting fresh with something new, but I don't know if doing something new would make a lick of difference. My problem has never been finding a diet program that works. As far as I'm concerned (and as far as studies have shown), it doesn't matter which diet you follow - if you are consistent you will lose weight. The excuses I use to veer from Weight Watchers would be just as able to derail me from South Beach, or the Sonoma Diet, or any other diet plan on earth.

And yet, I can't help but feel a little tempted to try it. I like the idea of Phase 1, 2 weeks of a more stringent plan to break your body of the sugar & simple carbohydrate addiction. I've even made a list of things I could eat during Phase 1. I guess I will read the book and contemplate things.

Still here, Still sick...

Still sick ... ear infection + sinus infection = blegh.

I decided to start actually using the eTools points tracker though, which is always fun. I am also toying with the idea of exercising a little tonight, depending on how I feel. What I really need is sleep. I haven't really had a good night's sleep in over a week. First it was being at my in laws', and their guest bed is so uncomfortable, neither my husband nor I could sleep on it. Then once I got home, being sick made it hard to sleep ... I couldn't breathe, my throat hurt, my ears hurt, my head hurt, and it was just too uncomfortable to sleep.

And that's how I learned that Vick's changed the formula to NyQuil! It doesn't work anymore. It's total crap. To get similar results to original NyQuil, I have determined that 2 Tylenol PM + 1 dose of pseudoephedrine + Delsym cough syrup does the trick. I suppose to get the full potent NyQuil knock-you-on-your-ass results, you could wash all that down with a shot of whiskey. I did not do that - I have been avoiding alcohol like the plague. I feel perpetually thirsty due to the sore throat so I don't need to consume anything that will dehydrate me further (and leech the vitamins from my body - I need them).

Anyway, I have a lot of work to do, and here I am, procrastinating. Bad bad bad shrinky!