I admit I was hoping for a random act of kindness from the weight loss gods, but it was not to be. I gained .2 of a pound, which is nothing much, except that I did wear lighter clothes this time, so... well, it is a gain. It is, however, not MUCH of a gain.

I am resolved to bank points every damn day this week, although with graduation coming up, I am not sure how that will work. I am going to extract at least one good dinner from my parents while they're here, points be damned! (I will try to be reasonable in my choices.) Of course, my mother will be watching me like a hawk, calculating the points in her head. Is it bad of me that I really don't want to see my parents this weekend? I am excited to see my little sister. But that's neither here nor there. I was talking about oints!

I am going to do my best with the weekend, and then after that is over, spend the rest of the week banking as much as possible. I want to exercise more, but I am not going to have a chance! Thankfully, once this week is over, so is the all-consuming June SAT. I also have a tailgating party and a Giants game to go to on Thursday; I will have to try and hold off on drinking too much beer. Maybe light beer or something, ugh.

This week poses a weight loss challenge, but I really want to see a loss next week. I can do it, I can do it! And then the week after that, when I have time to exercise and no indulgent meals planned, I can break that 30-pound mark at last.
- posted by mo @ 11:35 AM

 
Last night, I completely blew it. I was overwhelmed with a craving for spaghetti, and after working all day without food, I was so hungry that I couldn't resist going to get some. Of course, they also gave me a bunch of bread with this divine oily dipping sauce, and I ate all of that also. Also an Italian soda. And after that, I went to get some chai. I almost gave in and got a cookie as well ("Oh fuck it, I've already eaten too much!") but I restrained myself.

The only way to bounce back from this (because the week has been borderline all around) is to have a good rest-of-the-week with a lot of exercise. The problem is that I am so busy! I do have some mornings off, but I still have to get a haircut and go shopping for a graduation dress! And then graduation dinner is coming up. I should have been banking points for it, but I didn't.

Anyway, I guess that 30 pound mark is going to be a little elusive this week. That's okay, though. I'll get there. And I didn't eat the cookie.
- posted by mo @ 4:22 PM

 
I made the mistake of wearing my new overalls to the meeting. "Hey, let me go put on my heaviest item of clothing and step on a scale!" It worked out okay, because I still showed as having lost 1.8 pounds this week. Which means if I hadn't been wearing my stupid overalls, it might have been 2.0 or more! But it is still great. And it puts me within spitting distance of that 30 pound mark, and my new Michelle Branch CD. In fact, if I repeat this week and lose another 1.8 pounds, I've done it.

I went and bought sandals after the meeting, to go with my overalls. They are very cute, but I have to stop spending money. I am going to need all my money this summer, when I am broke!







- posted by mo @ 12:03 PM

 
I thought of some! 30 pounds: the new Michelle Branch CD. 40 pounds: highlights for my hair. I have never had highlights! 50 pounds: a dozen Krispie Kremes!

Oh wait, that's wrong. Um. 50 pounds: a pony!

Okay, that might not be practical either. 50 pounds: a weekend writer's getaway! I will splurge on a hotel room for myself and my laptop and spend a weekend writing. There will have to be a hot tub as well. Oh, that's a good idea. That is an excellent idea. 50 pounds, here I come!
- posted by mo @ 1:47 AM

 
I really like what the writer at [/fat] is doing with her milestones. She's rewarding herself each time she reaches another 10 pound goal. I reward myself continually, mostly with new clothes, but I like the idea of doing something special for myself at various points.

I am approaching the 30 pound goal. I wonder if there isn't something I can do to celebrate that. (I was going to say a cute haircut, but I need one of those anyway, for graduation. Speaking of which, I still don't have a dress! Speaking of which, I found an adorable dress online, but it is sleeveless. I have Arm Flab Issues. I don't know if I am ballsy enough to wear a sleeveless dress at this time. If I had enough time to take some anti-Flab action, I would feel better. But it is in ten days. I can't possibly eradicate the Flab in ten days.)

Speaking of being a clothes whore, I got overalls today from Old Navy. I have been really wanting overall pants for a while. I went for the XL instead of the XXL, and they fit! They fit snugly, but they do fit. I feel very Lil' Abner in my overalls. It's nice to put them on and think, "Well, they may be a little tight now, but that's good, because soon enough they will be a little loose!" I guess "soon enough" isn't really true. That's one frustrating thing, it seems to be taking forever, this weight-loss thing.

Which is ridiculous, because it's going pretty quickly, isn't it?


- posted by mo @ 10:58 PM

 
Well I have been fudging my math this week, but so far so good. Two bike rides this weekend, although I didn't get to go today... aah well. Thankfully you don't have to be perfect to do okay on WW. Or else I would be in serious trouble. If anyone thinks I am succeeding because of my huge amount of self discipline, I'm here to debunk that myth. I have no idea what is keeping me on track, except writing down all my food. That's the key, I think. The Big Secret. Because I am not much with the self-discipline.

I finally spent that $100 today. I went and tried on size 16 jeans and fit into them! So of course I had to get them. (Do you have any idea how long it's been since I was a size 16?) Along with many other things, although I didn't manage to find a graduation dress. Then I went home and did the measuring-tape trick, and found that I have lost 5.5 inches from various parts of my body. (That's a total of 14 inches lost from my arms, waist, thighs and hips. Not enough from my flabby arms, though! Just one inch total. Stupid arms.)
- posted by mo @ 12:43 AM

 
New weight-oriented entry up in le journalle.
- posted by mo @ 11:33 PM

 
I have new overalls! They are sort of ugly, but they were $9 and they fit. Six sizes smaller than my old ones, so you can imagine how hot I looked in in my clown overalls. I also bought new work pants! There's another item of clothing (my old work pants) going straight in the donation bin. I am not going to work with the Boy of Inappropriate Age in my huge ugly pants. That wouldn't help my cause at all.

I had a very unfortunate week, but I only gained .4 of a pound, and I consider that a gift from the gods. There were warm chocolate chip cookies involved, and dinners eaten out, and snacking at work, and liquor. And no exercise at all. And an entire bag of turkey jerky consumed in about fifteen seconds. It was in no way, shape, or form a good week for me.

One good thing (let's accentuate the positive here), aside from my not having gained very much, is that I kept journaling. And I went to the meeting this morning and sat through the whole thing. I haven't had the chance to go to a meeting in a while, and it really helps, no matter how inane the whole thing is. (Today the topic was "Supermarket Golf" with all these lame golf metaphors for grocery shopping. ) I feel reinvigorated, and no matter how many "fresh starts" I made this week, there's nothing like a weigh-in and a meeting to give you a real fresh start.

And regardless, overall, I have still lost 26.something pounds. I have to be kind to myself if I backslide, and then move forward. I'm going to have a good week! I can feel it in my bones.
- posted by mo @ 1:52 PM

 
It's time to applaud at your monitors again. In fact, you could applaud twice! I lost almost five pounds this week (although this does represent another morning weigh-in, and my weight is a good couple of pounds lighter in the morning than the evening, but still) and this makes a total of 26.8 pounds lost, which means I get my 25 pound bookmark, magnet, and applause.

The second applause is for losing "the first 10%" where you lose 10% of your starting body weight. This is supposed to be a magic number because research shows that losing even 10% of your body weight can make a significant difference in your overall health, etc. So I am 10% healthier than I was in January, or whatever it was I started this program. January, I think. (Does anyone know how to get a free cholesterol screening?)

At the meeting (which I couldn't stay for) the leader would have asked me, "Monique, how is your life different after losing the first 10%?" Well, it has given me the vague notion that I CAN actually manage to lose a substantial amount of weight. I wouldn't have believed it; I still barely believe it, but it's happening. And I feel different in my body. I always felt comfortable and confident, but it's a different sort of comfortable and confident. I guess I wouldn't have known quite how to answer the question, but it's good. I feel good.

Oh, and here's another story about my mother, while I am thinking about it. Last year when I started biking all the time and dropped some weight, I told my mother that it was really cool to be able to feel my collarbone (here I put my hand to my throat as illustration) without the layer of fat. So at a FAMILY BIRTHDAY PARTY, my mother decides to tell this story, and she says, "Oh, Monique told me she is so excited, because she lost weight, and now she has a neck again!"

Dude, even at my heaviest, I was never WITHOUT A NECK. I vowed at this time to keep my mouth shut around my mother.

So, in conclusion, I hate all my clothes, and plan to reward myself with shopping. Maybe I can squeeze into a size 16 now. Hella cool.
- posted by mo @ 10:57 AM

 
I can't figure out how to make the archives work on this thing. Does anyone use blogger? Anyone know what the hell I am doing wrong? I set up everything to publish, and somehow it's not going. My archives are not being uploaded to the server at all. Hmm.

I talked to my mom tonight. She said that she has all her WW bookmarks on the fridge (she has lost almost 40 pounds) and she moves my picture along the bookmarks according to how much weight I've lost, and she talks to my picture and tells me to keep it up, and she prays for me, and tells me what a good job I am doing.

God love her, but my mother's kind of a nutbar.
- posted by mo @ 12:35 AM

 
I used to think that being thin was such a magic bullet. I would listen to the problems of my friends and think, on some level, "Well, at least she's thin." This is a horrible mindset, but I think all the curvy girls out there know what I'm talking about. "It's okay; she'll find someone else; of course she will; she's thin! It's so much harder for me."

I still have 72 pounds to lose before I hit my goal weight, but I have already learned this is total bollocks.
- posted by mo @ 3:09 PM

 
Still maintaining, this week. It's been a real roller coaster; mostly, I haven't been eating enough. When I do eat, it doesn't taste good. The thing is, when a skinny girl gets depressed, she stops eating. When an overweight girl gets depressed, she eats tubs of ice cream. I have been vacillating between the two strategies, and it's made for an interesting week.

When I joined WW, the leader gave us the following inspirational quote: "There is no situation in life so bad that it can't be made worse by overeating." That's true, but for every pithy saying, there's an equal and opposite pithy saying: "There is no situation in life so bad that it can't be made a little bit better with a scoop of Mexican chocolate ice cream."

- posted by mo @ 11:55 AM