Day One

Last night I did wake up in the middle of the night & binge. Two bowls of cereal. I don't know why I did it. I don't know why I've been doing this almost every night since we moved. When I wake up I do not think clearly. I just am driven to do it so I do. It's not actual hunger, I don't think. Though I have stopped eating a nighttime snack before bed, so maybe that is contributing to the problem.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and weighed myself. 269.4. That's 10 lbs higher (give or take) than the last time I weighed myself. I am upset, but not really surprised. I *was* upset when I plugged my weight into Fitday and on its little chart where it says Underweight, Normal, Overweight, Obese... it had a little arrow pointing to the right of "Obese" with the caption "Off the Chart".

I am off the chart obese.

And yet I continue to lie to myself when I want to rationalize a snack, telling myself "I'm not that bad...." I am that bad. I am very, very fat. I don't often see it when I look in the mirror. But someone who is 5'4" and 269 lbs is very, very fat.

Maybe it's not that I try to rationalize my weight ... maybe I am just in denial. Like someone who has cancer but refuses to accept it. Do I refuse to accept my weight problem? I can't ignore it easily. Every time I go shopping I have to grab larger and larger size clothes. Some 2x shirts I bought are snug and make me feel self conscious. I have pants that are a size 26. Some of my 24's are snug right out of the wash. A year ago, I remember crying when I had to go up to a 22. Two years ago, I was in an 18.

Anyway, there isn't much of a point in dwelling on self-pity and regret. I am what I am right now, and as much as I might wish I could go back and edit my previous food selections and activity choices, I cannot. All I have control of is what I am going to do with what I have right now.

As I had mentioned, my plan was to sign up with Fitday...however, already feeling stung from being declared "Off the Chart", I found logging my breakfast and planned lunch to be a total pain in the ass. Their food database leaves much to be desired, and some of their nutritional facts are just way off! (1 cup of tempura is in no way ~100 calories and ~7 grams of fat!!!) I plugged my same info into Spark People and I found it a lot easier with a more extensive food database and more realistic nutrition info. Thus, I have decided to use Spark People as my log. I was excited to find that I can also share my meal tracker via Spark People.

So, to reiterate my plan:

• Logging my meals into Spark People.
• Taking a walk or doing some physical activity daily.
• Writing in this journal on a daily basis.

I'll add more guidelines as I progress with this. It's going to be hard not to be impatient while I make some slower changes, but I cannot go on the way I am.

I'm ba-ack...!

I stopped posting because I had made a decision to stop obsessing about food & my weight for awhile to see how that would go. It didn't go very well and I've gained some more weight. I didn't even think I was eating all that bad! Ugh. I feel like crap about the whole thing.

I think I am finally starting to realize that I just can't eat freely. If I ever want to get to and stay at a healthy weight I will always have to watch what I eat. I will always have to balance a higher calorie/point meal with lower calorie/point meals and exercise. I will always have to plan ahead when I can and make the best choices when I can't. I will always have to use portion control. I am not like those of my friends who can dine with wild abandon. I can enjoy food, but it must be in moderation.

I also think I'm finally starting to put losing weight and getting healthy as a priority over immediate gratification and the warm, fuzzy, safe feeling I get from my emotional eating. I have to admit that I love to eat. It's so far beyond the taste and the fullness. I can feel the chemicals in a sweet dessert course through me, and it's a sense of warmth and joy and wellbeing. It's a little high. It's a little high that's legal, cheap, and easy to get. And it's got to stop.

These next few weeks are going to be difficult. I am getting married on the 14th, and then going to Aruba for a week. I want to be able to eat out in Aruba and not have to order "diet" meals, and I suppose I can do that - not because it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, but because I will balance these meals out with lighter other meals, lots of exercise, and small portions.

The most important thing right now is to put the brakes on gaining weight and shift gears into reverse. I can do this.

WI Today

Weighed in this morning and had a loss of 2.2 lbs. This makes me very happy, but I still have a long way to go. What makes me happier than the WI is the fact that I really, truly stayed 100% OP this past week. I even had a WPA left over, which never happens. I cannot remember the last time I did not go over my points allowance & WPAs at some point during a week.

I've proved that I can do it, and I am going to keep doing it. I am going to be OP all month long to prove to myself what I can do when I put my mind to it. In addition to staying OP, I will continue to go to Curves 3x a week.

I also purchased a pedometer today and will begin tracking my daily steps and striving to reach 10,000 steps per day as of tomorrow. It may be hard considering that it's going to be rainy and crappy, but I have errands to run including a trip to the mall, so I may wind up being a mall walker for the day. Hehehe.

Doing Well!

I was not really pleased with Saturday's WI, but I am very pleased with how well I stuck to my plan this weekend. I knew it was going to be a challenge because I was at my fiance's family's so I had no way to plan ahead for my meals. However, I made it a point to drink a lot of water, fill up on salad and fruit, and skip desserts to save points.

Monday was a day off at home, and while I did log all my points, I wound up spending most of the day grazing on things that weren't as nutritious as salad and fruit, and wound up using 9 WPAs. Not the end of the world, but I need to work on days like that.

Today I'm back at work, with a plan that is working so far. After work I am going to Curves. I do enjoy it. It definitely is a decent workout.

Weekly Plan

This is my weekly plan through the end of June:

- Sunday: WPAs reset - new "Points" week
- Monday: Curves
- Wednesday: Curves
- Friday: Curves
- Saturday: WW meeting & WI

I want to power through and reach my 10% in the next couple of months, so I am also going to be more strict about staying OP and adhering to my daily Points target.

Curves

I signed up at Curves today, on a month-to-month plan, because I really need to get into a workout routine, even if it is on dinky Curves equipment. Once I can prove to myself that I can workout 3x a week for a few months in a row (I'm aiming for 3), I will then join a real gym.

I need to cancel my membership at my current "real" gym but first I need to get a letter from them saying how I've been a member for 4+ months this year so my health insurance will give me some dinero back.

Progress

On Saturday I had an "unofficial" WI at the WW meeting center (I had been in on Sunday which they considered the same week, so they couldn't put it in my booklet). I was down 1.8 lbs from Sunday! This makes me down 2.8 lbs for the past 2 weeks. I'm very happy with this progress. Because while I haven't been perfect, I have been persistent.

It's not about perfection, it's about persistence. Behold, my mantra!